In the clip above, Drew Barrymore’s character in He’s Just Not That Into You expresses how difficult it is to communicate with a guy she likes and the plethora of new technology available has made the rules of dating so much more difficult. In today’s society, we are constantly connected—whether it is through cell phones, social networking sites, or instant messaging. However, technology has made the rules of dating so much more difficult.
Say you meet a friend’s friend briefly one night and you got each other’s cell phone number. There is an unwritten law that guys wait at least 3 days before they call—if they even call at all. By knowing the guy’s first name, you can easily search him on Facebook through your friend’s friend list. By seeing his limited profile, you can figure out his school, network, and age as well as browse through his profile pictures and judge his lifestyle based on the pictures he chooses to display. The profile picture is the first thing anyone notices on Facebook and in Ollivier Dyens’ Metal Flesh and the Evolution of Man: Technology Takes Over, the author states that we live in a technological reality “assembled by humans and machines” and it is “perceived, decoded, and encoded by a man/machine perception” (Dyens 10). Furthermore, Dyens claims that technology shapes our understanding of the world and as a result, nature can no longer “exist apart from technologies” (11). With so much information that can be learned through browsing one’s Facebook profile, first impressions are no longer based on face-to-face interaction. Dyens states that “machines coevolve with us; our respective existences are completely tied to each other” (11). Technology plays a large role in shaping our perception of others and it is difficult to change our perception of one’s virtual identity to coincide with their real identity.
Samsung's ad illustrates how different angles can hide flaws and alter your appearance for a more flattering profile picture:
Girls often have double the amount of display pictures in their profile picture album compared to guys. Furthermore, girls put in more effort in angling their photos, adjusting the lighting, and meticulously choosing the most flattering photo that they want to display themselves with. In Susan Bordo’s The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private, Bordo states that “it’s feminine to be on display” (Bordo 173) while men are “judged by their accomplishments” (174). In addition, women learn to “play into the sexualizing gaze”(173) and in Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Mulvey associates the pleasure of viewing to Freud’s idea of scopophilia. Freud defines scopophilia as “taking other people as objects [and] subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze” (Mulvey 9). Facebook photos allow “the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as object” (9). Furthermore, Facebook allows people to create their identity with their profile and girls often use this opportunity to exhibit a more sensuous self that they are too shy to portray in real life. Girls portray a 2D sexuality by posing suggestively and wearing revealing clothing in order to attract more attention. A study of MySpace claims that females are more “likely to display sexually explicit content online” and after studying MySpace pages that contain sexual content, the study shows that 60% of the pages came from teen girls (Cohen, 2010). In Claudia Benthien’s Skin: On the Cultural Border Between Self and the World, Benthien claims that touch used to be associated with “closeness, intimacy, and eroticism” but with the plethora of new technology we have today, interactive touch in the new media can be defined as teletactility: “the sensual experience of closeness and intimacy… linked with anonymity and physical distance” (Benthien 221). Facebook allows individuals to flirt with one another through wall posts, private messages, “liking” one’s posts, or “poking” (which holds more sexual connotation) but Benthien highlights that these “cyber-sexual implications” result in “intimacy through interface [which is] intimacy without proximity” (Benthien 227).
 | ||
| An example of racy photos posted on Facebook or sent through text. (I found this photo through Google) |
A recent trend in sexting has allowed teens to engage in “intimacy without proximity” (227). People can now say sexually explicit things and portray a promiscuous identity that one may be afraid to do so face to face. This allows teens to create an alluring illusion that they’re sexually available and sexually experienced. Sexting illustrates Benthien’s claim that “Sexual experience of the future is autoerotic and narcissistic” (226) and Facebook also aids this narcissistic sexual experience as girls try to attract attention by posting sexually suggestive photos in hopes of getting compliments from friends and strangers to boost their self-confidence. Sexual experience through technology “requires more of an organizer than a partner” (226) compliments online is a mere ego-boost and by actively posting these photos and exposing one’s virtual identity, one can actively pursue virtual sexual experience from an infinite number of people. Similarly, cell phones have allowed people to engage several people at once with a few texts anywhere, anytime. With technology, the user can actively interact with many people until the user is satisfied with the outcome.
 |
| "Life is short. Have an Affair" |
Does technology aid or inhibit the rules of dating? With Facebook, you can monitor another’s actions and postings while Blackberry messaging indicates whether the receiver has read your message, making you wonder why the receiver has not replied. In a world of immediacy, Drew Barrymore’s character in He’s Just Not That Into You shows overaccessibility from technology is preventing us from having interpersonal interaction. Online dating websites such as Match and eHarmony advocates that technology helps you find love more efficiently than in person. However, Ashley Madison, a dating website targeted to married people, changes the rules drastically.
Ashley Madison's Controversial Ads:
Their slogan “Life is too short. Have an affair” promotes infidelity but the founder claims that many people are in sexless marriages and do not want to leave their spouses and with the aid of technology and Ashley Madison, the founder claims that the company “preserves more marriages than [they] break up (Daum, 2009). Similarly, Dr. Moreno’s study indicate while teens are using technology to reference sexual behaviour, technology allows a “public forum” for teens to discuss sexual behaviour and “‘test out’ their sexual identities before ‘moving into this world of being a sexual person’” (Cohen, 2010). While teens may post sexually explicit photos of themselves, this outlet of sexual expression allows them postpone sexual involvement in the real world until they are ready.
_________________________________
Benthien, Claudia. Skin: On the Cultural Boarder between Self and the World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Cohen, Tobi. “Explicit teen tweets a clue for parents it may be time to talk sex: study.” Vancouver Sun. Modification Date: 1 May 2010. Access Date: 17 November 2010. < http://www.vancouversun.com/life/ Explicit+teen+tweets+clue+parents+time+talk+study/2975304/story.html>
Daum, Meghan. “Ashley Madison’s Secret Success.” LA Times. Modification Date: 10 January 2009. Access Date: 17 November 2010. < http://articles.latimes.com/ 2009/jan/10/opinion/oe-daum10>
Dyens, Ollivier. Metal Flesh and the Evolution of Man: Technology Takes Over. Boston: The MIT Press, 2001.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975 pp. 6-18 <http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html>
It's really interesting how our dependence on the 2D changes the 3D reality. I like when you argue, "Technology plays a large role in shaping our perception of others and it is difficult to change our perception of one’s virtual identity to coincide with their real identity." I think this is so true. We look at someone's facebook and act as through we know all of them (which just really is not possible). Do you think this is a kind of attraction to the physical as manifested through technology? Our inability to gain true information about another's person emotion based on technology provides that we are looking at attributes and resumes to judge a whole person.
ReplyDelete-Bridget
I think it's interesting how you bring in Dyens' point about how we can no longer live apart from technology, because it's a great way to explain why we have turned to technology to create these identities for ourselves and to even take our relationships and love lives to the digital level. How do you think these new ways of interacting, intimacy without proximity, is affecting our biological relationships? What is the result of these changes?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I was completely shocked by your Ashley Madison example–I had never heard of the site before, and when I first watched the youtube advertisements you posted I thought it had to be a joke. What does even the existence of the "Ashley Madison" dating site say about our society and our view of technology and relationships?
I really like the Samsung commercial! It’s so true that we can use technology to change who we are and what we look like, especially in response to how we want others to see us (beautiful, attractive, interesting, unique etc…). While we may use technology to enhance our looks and our beauty, it is also possible to completely become something that we’re not, as seen with the transformed “monsters” in the ad. I think that Freud’s “controlling and curious gaze” is especially relevant since the profiles, most probably on Facebook or MySpace, are used to take a look a long look at someone who you might not even know that well—or know at all. Do you think that this “intimacy without proximity” has distanced young teens from the meaning of the body, merely using it as a ploy for attention, for example? How might such young people use these technological platforms to find their own definitions of the beauty and the body if the physical body doesn’t mean much to them at all?
ReplyDelete-Andrea Reres
I really like the way you related the texts to things happening in Facebook, which just about everyone uses. I also appreciate that you took the opposing views to some of these phenomenon as well. The internet definitely makes dating more complicated, and more anxiety inducing. I think the text message is possibly the worst think to happen to the female psych when it comes to dating. Now that more and more people have smart phones which include Facebook apps and what not (although I haven't heard about the message read technology that makes things even worse) we are always connected and always expected to be connected. I don't think that promiscuous photos of teens helps postpone their engagement in sexual activity, but rather accelerates it (I have a 13 year old sister, this Cohen guy is an idiot). If you but up sexualized pictures of yourself, people will expect you to live up to that in the real world. If anything, girls may feel pressured to prove that they aren't teases. I agree with Drew Barrymore.
ReplyDeleteThat Samsung ad was awesome and perfect! Facebook doesn’t really show a person—it shows what the person wants to show. You talk about sexting and ‘intimacy without proximity’, which I find really interesting, especially in how it affect relationships today. Because it is so easy to flirt via facebook or through text messaging, things can get incredibly awkward when in person, especially if technology is the primary way the two people communicate. My really good friend had an issue recently where a gorgeous girl friended him on facebook, and they started chatting a lot. Then they started talking on the phone, and whenever they would make plans to meet up, she would blow him off or stand him up. He finally got fed up, but we honestly think that the girl in the pictures wasn’t the girl he was talking to at all, since this has happened with a few of his other friends and this girl, which gives me goosebumps to think about. It just goes to show that while technology is great, how much can we really trust it?
ReplyDeleteI can’t believe I had never heard of Ashley Madison until I read this! I almost felt like it was a joke, because this is when technology becomes even more dangerous since cheating seems more okay than ever before. People say that cheating is just more common in this day and age, but why is that? Because we make it okay with sites like this! Technology certainly has its good points, but I guess with every good thing there’s got to be some type of downside…
I think the jury is still out on the effect of facebook on relationships. I have a close friend who discovered her boyfriend was unfaithful thanks to a facebook message from a friend of a friend. In the days before facebook, I wonder if she would have ever discovered the incident, and if so, how it would have been brought to her attention.
ReplyDeleteI had never seen that Samsung commercial, nor had I head of Ashley Madison. I think both have elements of truth: facebook profile pictures are definitely contrived, carefully manipulated to portray a lifestyle to the internet audience. The latter part of Ashley Madison's claim that many marriages are sexless and their service repairs more unions than it destroys seems like a stretch, though the former (that many marriages are sexless) I do not find hard to believe. I came across an article online the other day that claimed that marriages are dead, a thing of the past. Perhaps the demand for Ashley Madison's services is proof that the days of lifelong fidelity and commitment are on their way out.
-Claire Schlissel