A quick self-portrait doodle I did today that describes my feelings regarding the ever-increasing presence tech has in our lives.
A nih.gov article from 2013 states that an ideal amount of screen time for the average adult should be no more than 2 hours per day. That figure just 11 years later feels completely impossible to achieve, almost like a funny joke. I could hit those 2 hours, 4 times over just working on one school assignment. I have a much more robust and stable social circle online compared to any friendships I’ve managed to foster in real life. My new car’s speedometer and tacometer are both on a digital screen. I can’t even lower my daily screen time when I’m driving. Something about that is kind of terrifying to me.
Throughout this course, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to think about embodiment and how our physical bodies, in so many ways, shape the ways in which we move through and interact with the rest of the world. A lot of the readings have focused on the ways in which embodiment impacts “real-life” interactions, but the more modern (and especially relevant) aspect of social interaction in the digital sphere is something that I have yet to find in-depth studies for, specifically regarding human social behavior with others on the internet. I am curious to see more how social media, as it encroaches more and more on our lives, has an effect on how we perceive ourselves AND others.
Mary Kosut and Lisa Jean Moore discuss early sociological theory in their article, “Not Just the Reflexive Reflex.” Specifically, they highlight Karl Marx’s musings on human behavior: “Marx maintains that because we live in nature, nature is, in essence, our body…[h]umans emerge as a species being when we labor in the objective world…[a]ccording to Marx, the alienating mechanized labor [of the industrial revolution] erodes and jeopardizes our species being — that which makes us humans” (9). If Marx believed that industrialization had (and has) a negative impact on the human psyche, what would he think of the digital revolution and the rise of social media as well as professional spaces becoming more and more tech-oriented (think remote jobs and online-only academic courses)? Not only this, but what would he think of the capitalistic nature of the modern Internet, which has essentially become, for the most part, just another avenue for aggressive advertisement, monetization, and the spread of fascistic propaganda/misinformation? These are of course questions that can never accurately be answered, but they do make us ask these questions for ourselves and apply Marx’s theories on human sociology to modern digital social spaces.
I owe a lot to the Internet for shaping who I am as a person today, especially as I grew up. I am absolutely not discrediting the Internet’s capability to do good, especially when it comes to connecting people who otherwise may have never had a chance to meet or introducing people to brand new ideas and ways of thinking. The problem that comes from the presence of the Internet in our lives now — in my opinion — comes from the predatory nature in which it operates, demanding more and more of our attention and time for little actual benefit for us in return. What do we actually gain from endlessly scrolling a bottomless pit of content that some algorithm has decided will keep us online for as long as possible? Where do we actually draw the line between tool and distraction?
Unruly Bodies 
We have talked occasionally in class about how in the early stages of the Internet, feminists and scholars believed that it would be a new frontier for transcending embodiment and revolutionize organizing across geopolitical borders and spaces. Seeing the corporate-dominated space it has become, it is really unfortunate to see that the imagined alternative of the Internet that activists desired has failed to the capitalism-curated online experience we are all too familiar with.
If we were to somehow bring Karl Marx into 2024 and introduce to him the concept of the internet and digital embodiment, then show him what has become of mainstream online culture and how it has affected our physical lives, I genuinely believe his reaction would be not too unfamiliar from Seuss’s Lorax shaking his head solemnly and lifting himself up into the sky by the seat of his pants.
Hello, I 100% agree that studying embodiment on social media would be something worth while. Seeing specific images of familiar bodies and the treatment of them can certainly influence how to perceive yourself, but also how you may contort yourself with the thought of you being under a particular surveillance. Social media, I believe, intensifies our embodiment as the expressions of individuals on social media are intensified. It allows to say what we want without any consequences or having to take accountability. There’s no limiting factor to your expression because you don’t have to answer for them, which may be one factor of social media influencing our embodiment.
I believe that social media is truly a double edged sword as you’ve described in your blog post. On one hand it’s done wonders for how I feel about my identity and has enabled me to find many communities or like minded individuals. Put it’s also shown me the horrors of insurmountable perception so much so that I don’t like posting on any platform unless it’s through temporary forms like story posts. And the way in which social media has expedited the speed of late stage capitalism makes we worry what world we’ll have left when it’s all said and done.