Privacy and Self Presentationin the Digital Age

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D.

Who Are You?

• The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life– sociologist Erving Goffman • social rituals involved in self-presentation • = “impression management” • Different in the digital environment• The meaning of avatars

Presenting Your Image

• “Impression management online and off is not just an individual act; it’s a social process.”– danah boyd - It’s Complicated

• http://www.createdimage.com.au/blog/index.phpm=05&y=11&entry=entry110525-160007

Audience?Message?Social Norm?

“Social media has introduced a new dimension to the well-worn fights over private space and

personal expression.” – danah boyd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paparazzi

Cultural Changes

• We feel entitled to know other’s business• “civil inattention” – politely ignoring

embarrassing moments or information – no longer in vogue

• Scandals get attention in information-saturated world

• Celebrity gossip more and more popular

The Global Villagehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8J6uEUXlR0

Civil Inattention – Not Lookingeven though you can see!

Saving yourself and others from embarrassment

Civil Inattention Needed,(as well as context awareness)

A metaphor for social media “drama”

Paparazzi and Celebrity GossipHave Increased Greatly in Our Culture

Do Media Portrayals of Out-of-Control Behavior Affect Social Media Bullying?

Is the Cause Cultural or Technical?

In the Social Media Age

• “Four affordances, in particular, shape many of the mediated environments that are created by social media – persistence

• [It doesn’t disappear]

– visibility • [For anyone with a computer and URL]

– Spreadability • [Extremely easy to forward / share]

– searchability” • [Just google it!]

– danah boyd – It’s Complicated

We are Living in the Panopticon • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

The Concept of Privacy is Changingin the Digital Age

danah boyd:

• “Privacy … is a process by which people seek to have control over a social situation by managing – impressions, – information flows, and – context.”

• “Privacy is valuable because it is critical for personal development.”

Who Are You, Really?

• If you are always “managing impressions” of yourself because you are always watched, if you have no privacy, you can’t find out who you truly are.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask

When You Know Who / Where You AreYou Know How to Behave

• “Based on their understanding of the social situation—including the context and the audience—people make decisions about what to share in order to act appropriately for the situation and to be perceived in the best light.”

• But when you don’t know the context …• “Contexts don’t just collapse accidentally; they collapse

because individuals have a different sense of where the boundaries exist and how their decisions affect others.”– danah boyd – It’s Complicated

It FEELS Private and Safe to Reveal Yourself or Attack Anonymously But …

Context Collapse

• Context collapse is our new reality• "...Social media technologies

collapse multiple audiences into single contexts, making it difficult for people to use the same techniques online that they do to handle multiplicity in face-to-face conversation...”– (Marwick & Boyd, 2011)

Excerpt: http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media

• According to [Michael] Wesch, in face-to-face communication

• we assess the context of our interactions • in order to decide – how we will act, – what we will say, and– how we will construct (and present) ourselves.

Excerpt: http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media

As [Erving] Goffman says, • we continuously, unconsciously take note of our surroundings, • those present, and • the overall tone and temperature of the scene

– to move through it. • As social beings, we have become adept at • sussing out and performing micro-calculations • in the micro-second gaps of conversation • in order to move through those situations. When engaged in social interactions, we evaluate situations and

people as well as ourselves and how we fit into them

Excerpt: http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media

In social media, • face work does not have the same currency or value • because we don't see the expressions of those with

whom we are communicating. • Further, there is context collapse, or

homogenization of context, • because all of the micro-calculations we used to

make by evaluating a situation are gone, • removed and collapsed in social media.

Government and Businesses:Attitudes Toward Privacy

• Privacy is pretty well non-existent in the wired world

• Governments access ‘private’ communications– American NSA, Canadian CSIS– Edward Snowden -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

Our Vulnerable Computers

• Not just government agencies can invade our privacy

• Agencies and hackers can invade our computers and phones to learn our secrets

• Online businesses can delete what we bought and paid for

• Business that we trust with our financial information might not encrypt it securely enough to prevent hacking

Your Stuff

• Cookies – your computer history doesn’t disappear

• Most cloud email and storage is on servers in the U.S. – Canadian gov’t trying to change that for gov’t materials – http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/03/07/ti

me_for_consumers_to_think_local_for_cloud_computing_geist.html

Digital Rights Management://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-encryption-works

Encryption and Your Datahttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-encryption-works

Commercial Hackinghttp://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/target-missed-alarms-in-epic-hack-of-credit-card-

data

Our Privacy and Identities – VERY Limited

• http://www.abine.com/blog/2013/9-easy-ways-to-beat-identity-thieves/

• Pay close attention to your bank account. • Ultra-personalize your credit card. • Lock down your privacy settings on social

networks. • Remove your information from data mining

websites that publicly post and sell it. • Etc. … and not so easy

The New Public Square & Panopticon

You are Being Watched!

• In our digital culture, we now have audiences– Mostly unknown by us– Invisible to us– From many different places and cultures– From future times; (our information doesn’t

disappear)• We are trying to learn how to behave in our

panoptic world

Growing Awareness

Sophisticated Tactics

• Different personas for different sites/media, for example, Tumblr

• Controlling who gets to see what posts on Facebook, using their tools

• Making Instagram private, and only allowing people you actually know to follow

• On LinkedIn, networking with posts and endorsements

• Understanding Twitter, especially Lists

Are You the Same Person on All Your Social Media Sites?

• “[She (or he)] represent[s] herself in different ways on different sites with the expectation of different audiences and different norms” – danah boyd It’s Complicated

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jack_Lemmon_-_1968.jpghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/andys93integra/6114180062/

Serious Journalist; Flippant TwittererAndrew Coyne, National Post, CBC

The Dark Entrepreneurial Side - Retweeted by @socialnerdia

Social Media is Increasingly Being ‘Managed’

Designing for Attentionhttp://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2014/03/21/snapchat-attention.html

• Developers are working to design apps that make use of our current digital habits

• To combat multitasking, lack of attention, and spreadability,

• Snapchat demands attention by the time limit• And provides some privacy

The Printing Press Changed the World

• The internet and web are just beginning• Profound impacts already on – Communication – email, Skype, social media– Politics – political messages, fund raising– Relationships – Facebook, dating– Education – Classroom content, MOOCs– Publishing – decline of newspapers, rise of ebooks,

blogs

• Etcetera ad infinitum

Highly Recommended

http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/download-a-free-copy-of-danah-boyds-book-its-complicated-the-social-lives-of-networked-teens.html

Works CitedImages from Google Images /Search tools / Usage rights / Labeled for noncommercial reuse

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Arthur, C. (2013, September 6). How internet encryption works. The Guardian. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-encryption-works

boyd, d. (2014). It's complicated: the social lives of networked teens. Boston: Yale University Press.danah boyd | apophenia. (n.d.). danah boyd apophenia RSS. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2014/03/21/snapchat-attention.htmlContreras, E. [@socialnerdia] (2014, March 26). $3,000 "social media wedding concierge" will come up with a #hashtag for you.

please stop. pic.twitter.com/EttzK0L8Vk [Retweet of Bosker, B. (@bbosker)] Retrieved from https://twitter.com/bbosker/status/448468488898637824

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Coyne, A. [@acoyne] (2014a, March 26). Ukraine had planned "to train the dolphins to attack enemy swimmers with knives or pistols fixed to their heads." http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/russia-has-taken-ukraine-s-fleet-of-dolphins-20140326 … [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/448874825759461376

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Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined

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