'For the Arab World, a Potent Lesson'
'The reported departure of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, after popular protests in his North African country, electrified an Arab world whose residents have increasingly complained of governments that seem incapable of meeting their citizens’ demands and bereft of ideology save a motivation to perpetuate themselves in power. '
ANTHONY SHADID
SICK
The health care plan voting has been postponed again. It made me think of this video I watched a couple of years ago.
Facebook has broken its own record in 2011: it now has 600 million users, which represents 10% of the world population. Next to this headline, you have the option to ‘like’ it, so it’s published directly on your Facebook home page. Apart from general clichés about the site’s power and use, there are other considerations about Facebook and other social media, for it is now changing part of the psychology of a whole generation. Facebook, Blackberry chat, MySpace, Hyves and other networking sites have found the ultimate target audience in young, active, educated citizens; but what is the motivation behind Facebook and other forms of online self-presentation? This question was posted to undergraduate Harvard students. Their answers included a desire for social contact and curiosity about other people (for which, most likely, self-disclosure is the medium of exchange). There are some other possibilities.
According to Cooley, we are constantly trying to see ourselves through the eyes of others. Online self-presentation poses different challenges. Nonetheless, the correct use of social media may enhance many benefits. Once a person externalizes thoughts and sees that others care to consider them, not externalizing them seems pointless, like a deflating feeling after reading a book for no one’s benefit but our own.
Facebook has encountered various controversies. It has been blocked in different countries for diverse reasons. It has also been banned at many different working locations to prevent waste of time and the privacy of Facebook users has been compromised in different occasions.
One of sociologists and psychologists main concerns about Facebook is the shape of the self that it might convey. Skeptics of social media defend that it has come to a point where many young people, who are still shaping themselves, are creating media profiles instead of developing their authentic selves. Maslow depicts how self esteem and self actualization are achieved as the final development of the person. ‘Facebook decreases public self confidence by exposing the persona and therefore partially annuls the process of esteem (outside the social networking community)’ is an observation from a female college student. Average time use of Facebook is 7 hours a month, nonetheless this time highly increases highly for young people in ‘first world’ countries. Given that you can create whatever public persona you like, it would ‘seem logical that people might portray an idealized version of themselves’ – uploading photos were they look good, editing their profiles to seem most clever and carefully choosing their books, movies and quotes to portray sophistication (or any other positive aspect). Photography many times can be an illusion of reality. With the technology of digital cameras there is the option to take many pictures and delete those which we don’t like. ‘I once went out with a friend to a party. I could honestly say it was the most boring party I have ever attended. The next day, Facebook pictures tagged on my wall projected a completely different image: from all of my photos, it seemed like yesterday’s party was my best! The girls had posed and dressed up, made fun and outgoing postures.’, says a college female student. Although this is partially true, it does not reflect the whole reality: not so, say researchers from the University of Texas. More often people’s use of Facebook and their profiles reflect their authentic personalities.
Self-consciousness online is has also been raised as an area of discussion for different research groups. Self-consciousness is a ‘deep sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self awareness; which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being.’ Facebook, research shows, makes individuals self-conscious, which can lead to both positive and negative consequences. ‘An unpleasant feeling of self-consciousness may occur when one realizes that one is being watched or observed, the feeling that "everyone is looking" at oneself.’ Some individuals are already more self-conscious than others, but harsh feelings of consciousness can be associated to extreme shyness and paranoia. Schopenhauer defended that through self consciousness man could make a choice between affirming or denying the will.
Another concern of Facebook is the amount of personal information that is processed on the site. Not only basic information posted on the profiles, but also information revealed in applications and psychological tests. It has become very popular to access Facebook test applications. Tests such as ‘what is your perfect career choice’, ‘how evil are you’, ‘where should you live’, ‘what’s your personality’ ask deep personal questions. Before accessing these tests you are asked to approve that Facebook can access, through this application, not only to everything on your profile (information, friends, photos…) but also all the answers to the test. These answers may well be used by Facebook (or any other company that wants to advertise on it) to create specific consumer profiles and target consumption through real consumer insight.
Though there are many concerns with the abuse of social media, many teens reveal that they indeed feel certain addiction to Facebook; there are also many reasons that it could be (and many times is) used as a positive technological device.
Facebook requires that users utilize their true identity; a demand that MySpace, for example, does not make. This is tranquilizing for users, who know that if they had any problem with anyone on Facebook, the individual could be quickly located. Facebook has also enlarged webs of knowledge for many young people, allowing trends (music, blogs, fashion..) to flow fast across different points on the planet. People add on Facebook not only friends and relatives but also acquaintances and even someone they have only met once. This allows the connection between users to be even higher.
Facebook permits underground artistic development. Many young people find their photographic/writing/communications skills to be praised online and then decide to make a profession from it.
Being aware of one’s and other’s actions makes individuals conscious about reality and expansion of it. This awareness can result in tolerant, empathic behavior. Social contact is favored by Facebook as well. And then, there is no empiric evidence that Facebook socialization is less "real" than a bunch of friends chatting at the coffee shop.
Freedom of speech is another advantage of the site. In 2009, Facebook received criticism for including controversy groups. Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said, "We want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed." It can be used for positive activation of citizenry. In February 2008, a Facebook group called "One Million Voices Against FARC" organized an event that saw hundreds of thousands of Colombians march in protest against the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia.
Adapting new educational information about the psychology of technology to schools would add to the correct use of social media and other sites. Facebook will disappear or not, but other sites will appear. It is now obvious for all researchers that online networking is changing the way individuals socialize but there is little education on how technology has impacted on our psychology. On the other hand, social media makes individuals conscious about their own and other’s impact instantaneously, allowing behavior to change positively towards it.
LA VIDA ES SUEÑO
Es verdad; pues reprimamos esta fiera condición, esta furia, esta ambición por si alguna vez soñamos. Y sí haremos, pues estamos en mundo tan singular, que el vivir sólo es soñar; y la experiencia me enseña que el hombre que vive sueña lo que es hasta despertar. Sueña el rey que es rey, y vive con este engaño mandando, disponiendo y gobernando; y este aplauso que recibe prestado, en el viento escribe, y en cenizas le convierte la muerte (¡desdicha fuerte!); ¡que hay quien intente reinar, viendo que ha de despertar en el sueño de la muerte! Sueña el rico en su riqueza que más cuidados le ofrece; sueña el pobre que padece su miseria y su pobreza; sueña el que a medrar empieza, sueña el que afana y pretende, sueña el que agravia y ofende; y en el mundo, en conclusión, todos sueñan lo que son, aunque ninguno lo entiende. Yo sueño que estoy aquí destas prisiones cargado, y soñé que en otro estado más lisonjero me vi. ¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí. ¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión, una sombra, una ficción, y el mayor bien es pequeño; que toda la vida es sueño, y los sueños, sueños son. |
LITERAL TRANSCRIPT
'A hundred years ago a new theory about human nature was put forth by Sigmund Freud. He had discovered he said, primitive, sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the minds of all human beings. Forces which if not controlled led individuals and societies to chaos and destruction.
Bernays is almost completely unknown today but his influence on the 20th century was nearly as great as his uncles. Because Bernays was the first person to take Freud's ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations for the first time how to they could make people want things they didn't need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires.
Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying people's inner selfish desires one made them happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate our world today.
Since the end of the 19th century, America had become a mass industrial society with millions clustered together in the cities. Bernays was determined to find a way to manage and alter the way these new crowds thought and felt.
To do this he turned to the writings of his Uncle Sigmund. Bernays read it and the picture of hidden irrational forces inside human beings fascinated him. He wondered whether he might be able to make money manipulating the unconscious. So Eddie began to formulate this idea that you had to look at things that will play to people's irrational emotions. Bernays set out to experiment with the minds of the popular classes.
What the corporations realized they had to do was transform the way the majority of Americans thought about products. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man's desires must overshadow his needs.
After World War I Freud was basically a pessimist. He felt that man is an impossible creature and a very sadistic and bad species and did not believe that man can be improved. Man is a ferocious animal, the most ferocious animal that exists.
What fascinated and frightened journalists was the picture Freud painted of submerged dangerous forces lurking just under the surface of modern society. Forces that could erupt easily to produce the frenzied mob which had the power to destroy even governments. It was this they believed had happened in Russia. To many this meant that one of the guiding principles of mass democracy was wrong; the belief that human beings could be trusted to make decisions on a rational basis.
The leading political writer, Walter Lippmann argued that if human beings were in reality driven by unconscious irrational forces then it was necessary to re-think democracy. What was needed was a new elite that could manage what he called the bewildered herd.
This would be done through psychological techniques that would control the unconscious feelings of the masses.
And so here you have Walter Lippmann, probably the most influential political thinker in the United States, who is essentially saying the basic mechanism of the mass mind is unreason, is irrationality, is animality.
Against this backdrop Freud who was suffering from cancer of the jaw retreated yet again to the alps. He wrote a book called Civilization and it's Discontents. It was a powerful attack on the idea that civilization was an expression of human progress.
Instead Freud argued civilization had been constructed to control the dangerous animal forces inside human beings. What was implicit in Freud's argument was that the ideal of individual freedom which was at the heart of democracy was impossible. Human beings could never be allowed to truly express themselves because it was too dangerous. They must always be controlled and thus always be discontent.
What did Freud think about the idea of the equality of man? He didn't believe in it.
Bernays manipulated people and got them to think that you couldn't have real democracy in anything but a capitalist society which was capable of doing anything.
It's not that the people are in charge but that the people's desires are in charge. The people are not in charge the people exercise no decision making power within this environment.
So democracy is reduced from something which assumes an active citizenry to the idea of the public as passive consumers driven primarily by instinctual or unconscious desires and if you can in fact trigger those needs and desires you can get what you want from them.'
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