Saturday, November 22, 2014
Monday, November 17, 2014
Every Screen Has Two Sides
"Secrets, secrets, are no fun! Secrets are for everyone." The individual who came up with this cute catch phrase could never have been so right, but they also could never have anticipated the application to one of the most defining problem/success of this generation: social media.
Secrets may be fun for the taunting, but the potential for people to cause harm toward the subject of the subject shoots through the roof when social media becomes the platform for this form of cyberbullying. In an article by The Economist, the most prominent form of bullying has shifted away from the bully on the playground who stole kids' lunch money to the person or people who preserve their identity online. The industry of anonymous social media sites and platforms sprouted in the mid-to-late 2000s when VC firms invested in inklings that later transformed into multi-million and, for some, multi-billion dollar customer bases. One example is Yik Yak, a challenge that many school have had to deal with, the Glenbrooks included. Yik Yak is a location-based site where one can post just about anything and has an audience of whoever is within a 1.5-mile radius can view. It became a hotbed of gossip and slander and has caused many students--or victims--to seek help from guidance counselors. Clearly, there is a problem with the anonymity factor in this case. Especially for teens, the concoction of being able to keep oneself secret--which functionally erases common bounds of morality and conscience--and having secrets of others to share, a great deal of harm can be done. However, is anonymity all bad?
Contrary to popular belief, there are always two sides to the screen. There is certainly a case against the traditional social media platform like Facebook, that actually centers around ego, vanity, and the concept of a profile: the image one architects for the rest of the world to see. Little do most users know that what they don't see is equally if not more important than one of their friends' or followers' profiles. By hiding secrets, which are what we are in the end, a false or distorted image has the ability to make others feel quite bad about themselves (see video below). In this article, the case is made that given the fact that this same focus on vanity, that has even driven people to suicide, people are more likely to come forward and make themselves vulnerable. I an interview, the CEO of a booming company (that pioneered the application known as Whisper) pulled up a screenshotted conversation between one girl, who shared that she was going to inflict self-harm, and another girl who talked her down anonymously. Granted, we must put this situation in context ad look at the application holistically, but it is important to recognize the alternative impacts that secrecy can have.
After all, we are more inclined to share secrets with those we don't know with the comfort that there isn't, theoretically, a way for those secrets to be traced back to our thumbs tapping the screen in little text boxes. Drawing the distinction between whose secrets are being shared, however, does teach us the valuable lesson that coming forward with our own secrets can go as far as to save us, but sharing those of others before they are ready can do the exact opposite. Secrets, therefore, should by no means be considered playthings and need to be treated as even more fragile when posted where they can't be erased.
Secrets may be fun for the taunting, but the potential for people to cause harm toward the subject of the subject shoots through the roof when social media becomes the platform for this form of cyberbullying. In an article by The Economist, the most prominent form of bullying has shifted away from the bully on the playground who stole kids' lunch money to the person or people who preserve their identity online. The industry of anonymous social media sites and platforms sprouted in the mid-to-late 2000s when VC firms invested in inklings that later transformed into multi-million and, for some, multi-billion dollar customer bases. One example is Yik Yak, a challenge that many school have had to deal with, the Glenbrooks included. Yik Yak is a location-based site where one can post just about anything and has an audience of whoever is within a 1.5-mile radius can view. It became a hotbed of gossip and slander and has caused many students--or victims--to seek help from guidance counselors. Clearly, there is a problem with the anonymity factor in this case. Especially for teens, the concoction of being able to keep oneself secret--which functionally erases common bounds of morality and conscience--and having secrets of others to share, a great deal of harm can be done. However, is anonymity all bad?
Contrary to popular belief, there are always two sides to the screen. There is certainly a case against the traditional social media platform like Facebook, that actually centers around ego, vanity, and the concept of a profile: the image one architects for the rest of the world to see. Little do most users know that what they don't see is equally if not more important than one of their friends' or followers' profiles. By hiding secrets, which are what we are in the end, a false or distorted image has the ability to make others feel quite bad about themselves (see video below). In this article, the case is made that given the fact that this same focus on vanity, that has even driven people to suicide, people are more likely to come forward and make themselves vulnerable. I an interview, the CEO of a booming company (that pioneered the application known as Whisper) pulled up a screenshotted conversation between one girl, who shared that she was going to inflict self-harm, and another girl who talked her down anonymously. Granted, we must put this situation in context ad look at the application holistically, but it is important to recognize the alternative impacts that secrecy can have.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Response to "Soldier of Change takes one soldier from the closet to center stage"
September marked the three-year anniversary of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gays and lesbians in the U.S. Military. DATD is perhaps one of the best contemporary examples of secrecy being woven into the fabric of an institution so large as our armed forces. The transition away form this enforced secrecy has been a critical one for increased rights for gays and lesbians in this country and, more importantly, marked an ideological shift with regards to how we treat openly gay people. While the transition for most has gone relatively smoothly, there are still stark examples of prejudice that have lurked, targeting the men and women who continue to serve an apparatus and a nation that doesn't always treat them with the respect to which they are entitled given such their service to the nation. (To see one example, see the article on Air Force Maj. William Britton http://www.glaad.org/blog/soldier-change-takes-one-soldier-closet-center-stage).
The decision to move away from DATD was not one that happened over night. Despite its official end, I don't believe it to be a policy we have entirely abolished. In an (article) published by GLAAD, a soldier by the name of Stephen Snyder-Hill (then Captain Hill) submitted a video to a 2011Republican primary debate two days after the repeal of the DATD from his station in Iraq. Hoping other people would ride the same tide of change that the military had, he reasonably urged the Republicans to consider extending spousal benefits to legally married soldiers. He was not only rejected in his request, but those attending the primary collectively booed the soldier off of the virtual stage. (While he no doubt assumed some sort of risk involved in submitting this video, there is still a line that was crossed by one who bashed him.) Although it is now a couple years after the fact, this resonates in a variety of ways. First and foremost, Snyder-Hill is a rather clear example of how somebody's secret can be used to malign them in the moment. As a result of his outing himself and merely encouraging further discussion of rights, he was ridiculed and almost certainly treated differently as a member of the armed forces after becoming the focal point for the military's gay rights movement. (His memoir, "Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement", was released in June 2014). Secondly, just after making room for change, the door was slammed on an entire segment of the population, that had just been accepted regardless of preference, with a message that couldn't be missed: "we don't care if it's acceptable to tell your secret or not because you are still not equal."
While laws have since changed and the Defense of Marriage Act has been extended to the military, the importance of the secret exhibits itself in a couple of different ways in Snyder-Hill's case. While he was ridiculed by the Republicans in the moment and likely ridiculed as well by other soldiers for a period of time after that, the case he presented by coming forth with a secret has played a role in helping same-sex couples to have same benefits as heterosexual couples have extended to them. We all have secrets we come forth with at some point in our lives. Even if those don't have the same profoundness or audience that Snyder-Hill's did, there are very often two sides to the secret that determine whether or not a secret is worth sharing. Those two sides are the side that empowers and the side that maligns. Will you malign yourself but wind up helping people in the long run, will you wind up only benefitting yourself while damaging others' images, or is there another combination? Just some food for thought as we go about keeping and telling the big and small secrets in our daily lives.
Until next time,
Aaron
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