Discuss issues about privacy, the rise of the “selfie” and of “oversharing” in the debate on social media presence.
Introduction: The rise of oversharing
We write status about what we like and dislike, take personal pictures or self portraits known as « selfies » on Facebook, send entertaining or helpful links by email (Chadwick Martin Bailey, September 2010,10) , upload videos on Youtube and other kind of content. Thanks to the Internet and the rapid growth of social platforms are giving the opportunity for any individual to create its own identity card and update it anytime when it’s necessary. On one hand, oversharing is showing how society changed and used social medias to become more self-expressive. As the author Ben Agger (2012,46) pointed it out, it seems unconceivable and almost preposterous for the actual generations not to have a social media presence on the Internet and adorn it by oversharing any kind of content. A study (Ipsos, September 17, 2013) showed the most shared content on social media are pictures (43%), personal opinions,hobbies and links to articles (26%), recommendations (25%) and « news item » (22%). On the other hand, giving too much information about yourself can be slippery and restrictive. This is what is called more or less oversharing. The generation targeted the most by this phenomenon is the youth, sometimes not capable of defining what is appropriate to post, where to post it and why post it at a certain moment. Today, I think it is important to identify with the concerns about oversharing and and get wisdom enough to control it and our privacy saved.
Part I: Identifying the concerns about oversharing
The other day I was reading “Forgive me if I overshare. I’m just trying to help (Isabelle Odeberg, September 2015) and agreed on the journalist position suggesting it is not that easy to tell what oversharing could mean and I think this is why people of my age _ I’m twenty-three years old – are confused about oversharing. That’s the reason why I thought the best way to do it would be to have a look at posts posted by people, shared online content and comments on social platforms such as Facebook and then compare what would be considered as oversharing or not. It is important to say social media are being used to make everyone feel they are in the same playing field. In other words, social platforms are letting people participate and socializing in the mass communication sphere by joining communities, groups, forums or sharing about their personal thoughts and opinions. For instance, sharing a status can bring a lot of informations about your real state of mind (Lauren Labrique, May 2015). To summarize, oversharing is a new source of inspiration for anyone needing to feel they achieved a high level of personal and professional development (Michael Grenfell, 2004, 167).
Moreoever, is it interesting to see now how social media can be used against you, especially when you are passing an interview for you first job and trying to leave a good impression to the person who is willing to employ you. For example, we can imagine the following scenario: you are owning a Linkedin or Viadeo account – so a professional one – but you also like to post pictures of your friend’s puppy because it is so cute and the video was uploaded in Youtube, the warning here wold be to tell it is fine to do this but don’t forget to change your Facebook settings to « Friends Only ». Today, is it important to highlight, everything we do is directly linked to our professional life. The way we build our reputation on the Internet will tell more about our personality and skills. It can be complicated today to prevent anyone interested in your resume from looking at your Facebook profile to see how serious you are, if you can adapt quickly to any workplace and how you handle stressful contexts (Rachel Ryan, April 2013). As a conclusion oversharing would describe a panel of situation that people willingly post online and want it seen and “liked” by others on social media. It brings positive personal self-esteem, self-confidence and the feeling of self-achievement; but posting and sharing must be used wisely especially for professional purpose. Indeed, showing your boss you are keen on puppies is fine or that you love traveling with your family too but oversharing this kind of content can be noxious (Ronald Read, 2013, 12).
Part II: How oversharing generated selfie rise
First of all, a selfie refers to letting anyone use his/her own phone to take a picture of himself/herself. Once the picture had been taken, three seconds later it is already posted or shared on social platforms. Introduced for the first time on November 19th 2013, the term “selfie” is awardedWord of the Year by The Oxford Dictionnaries (Carrie Barclay, Malcolm Croft, 2015) In less than two years, the “selfie” phenomenon spread like wildifre all over social media by celebrities like Ellen Degeneres who took on her Samsung smartphone during The Academy Awards of March 2014 one of the most retweeted selfie of the history. Indeed, a study (Shea Bennett, March 2014) registered 48% of Facebook posts shared were selfies, mostly by women (52%) against 50% for men both aged 18 to 24 years old. The difference between the two sex genders is not that big and show how selfie became a common trend.
Even tough, the definition of selfie is clearly settled down in everyone’s mind , the invasion of selfie in social media raise new debates about appropriate situations to take a selfie. For instance, a selfie take by the American President Barack Obama during Nelson Mandela’s memorial day with British Prime Minister David Cameron Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt (Peter Dominiczak, December 2013) became the center of strong dislikes toward selfie movement. Besides, the use of social media also became very tricky, indirectly pushing people into collecting more likes when they are sharing pictures, Posting an original selfie is the new need; to be “loved” and “supported” by the crowd she/he must be creative, different.
As a conclusion on this first article, I would like to say selfie is the best illustration to illustrate the perfect transition made by new technologies in our society; however, we are slowly letting digital tools transforming us into slaves, asking for more attention, likes, retweets, etc. Selfie entertains self-confidence, narcissism and lack of communication between young people. The downside of the coin is I can see how my generation accepted the use of new digital tools and how younger people are getting completely obsessed by what is going on their phone or laptop screen.
Part III: Social media and video shared content
Five months ago, I was on Youtube looking for new songs to listen to on my iPhone but got distracted by gameplay walkthrough posted by the youtube user and gamer jackscepticeye published on 5th September 2013. The video taken from the horror exploration game Outlast was introducing the adventures of Miles Upshur, a freelance journalist investigating the mysterious and gloomy events that led to the abandon of a psychiatric hospital (vgezer, October 2015). In few videos, I’m following the journalist’s progress through the isolated hospital, the struggle of the jackscepticeye looking for clues, using the night-vision of Miles’ camera to look for clues, consulting the journalist guidelines in his notebook to avoid weird appearances and anticipate next step of the game.Amused by the reactions of this Irish Youtube gamer, I subscribed to his Youtube’s channel with my Gmail account.
By paying more attention to his Youtube introduction page. Jack collects a lot of “likes” per video posted, those videos are posted daily to keep 8,187,206 fans posted with any gameplay. By sharing those videos on his Youtube channel, jackscepticeye managed to build social engagement by reuniting gamers or non gamers sharing an interest on horror gameplay. Youtube is the tool that is helping jackscepticeye to interact with fans quicker, get feedback on his ‘gaming performances’ and be challenged by other gamers. Jack – who joined Youtube on February 2007 – is a perfect example he demonstrates a strong will from the gaming community to belong somewhere, exist and find their path in the gaming hierarchy (James Getomer , Michael Okimoto, Brad Johnsmeyer, July 2013). Gamers owning a Youtube account have the power of video sharing gameplay demos or walkthrough, commenting reviews, making tutorials and compete each other .
Even though oversharing is starting to be considered as invading any one’s private life, its power permit the creation of online communities today able to save dying institutions in the entertainment field such as the gaming industry. Youtube is the best illustration of it today.That is the reason why I think it is relevant to point out today how new technologies have considerably changed human’s mindsets into thinking sharing, posting as something normal, a prove showing you are being very active and present online. This new way of communicating also encouraging self-expression can take several directions; to be viewed and heard as an individual by posting on the Web something very personal you can take a selfie, to mention an extraordinary thing recently did like winning a game you can record it as a video and post it on Youtube. To conclude, video shared content permitted the rise of youtube gamers (Kiri Miller, 2012, 188).
Conclusion: Controlling oversharing
21st century virtual reality opening its doors, letting people expressing their deepest narcissists desires and deceptions. One of the best illustration to prove this statement is the story of cartoon character named Billy. Billy appeared few weeks on Facebook with this strange slogan “Be Like Billy”. This cartoon owns a Facebook page and allows to enter your name and your gender informations to get a customized description of yourself. Uploaded as a small picture with five ironical sentences, Billy describes what you like to do the most when you are on Facebook. By making some research about Billy, I found out he is the invention of the internet entrepreneur Eugenio Croituru, who in few words is explaining the concept of Billy:
“The idea is very simple. ‘Bill’ can be anyone who is smart and has common sense and doesn’t do annoying things,” said the creator. He also added the the character can also be someone who can make fun of himself and would joke about others occasionally.”
Eugenio Croituru
Billy aims at giving “life lessons” by making fun of people spending too much time on their electronic devices and on social media. Bill reached over “1.3 million Likes” on 7th January after first post of the cartoon was shared on social media. It is even possible to buy t-shirts, hoodies, polo shirts and accessories to be part of Billy’s community. However, Billy’s cartoon was not appreciated by social media lovers. A twin brother named Dick was created. Dick has his Facebook Page as well named « Don’t Be Like Dick ». Dick’s cartoon is using the same layout and ironical tone as Billy; Dick does dangerous things that no one would ever think of because common sense would advice you no to.
Eugenio Croitoru uses humor and teach us we must find the right balance between social media, smartphones and real life. I think Billy and Dick are original reminders calling everyone back to reality. Smartphones must be considered as an communicating tool, helping us to get in touch with people we need to. Smartphone can’t replace real life social rituals and should be a supportive engine keeping private life unspoiled. I agree on Croitoru’s vision of denouncing this urgent need we have sometimes of making every tiny bit of our existence public.At the same time, people of my generation keep on asking something they heard from someone else about me and start gossiping if I don’t post a status. Posting is like clarifying and proving you are not passive. In my opinion, sharing an article I like is quite nice but it won’t widen my friend’s list. My real friends come to talk to me by private messages because they care and like me they avoid sharing and commenting on public pages because it is something becoming too common. Billy makes me think it is so important to live every instant of your life because technologies can be fixed but human life is too shot to b fully wasted behind a screen.