Facebook and Popular Opinion.

Although I don't find You Are Not A Gadget to be a particularly organized argument, I do agree with some of the things that Jaron Lanier poses within the book (and therefore wish it was better phrased and expressed). On the subject of individualism on the internet, I do agree that I think that we lose a certain about of our identity and become part of a larger voice on the internet - especially because, much like in life, sometimes people can succumb to peer pressure on the web and join the popular opinion on an issue. Granted, anonymity on the web is one the things that keeps this from happening, but on sites like Facebook, and in some cases Twitter and Tumblr, your name is attached to what you write, and at times you may say something you don't actually believe, because it's what other people are saying online. And example of this is when Osama Bin Laden died - and I'll most likely talk about this in my paper as well - but I remember when it was announced that he had been killed, people took to Facebook to celebrate his death. This was something that I couldn't believe, and a lot of people I knew couldn't either - and yet we found ourselves liking those statuses, and in some cases perhaps even posting them ourselves. I didn't, but I know I liked at least one (my friend Michael posted a clip from the Simpsons of Homer Simpson yelling, "USA! USA!").

Although there is something inherently problematic about celebrating someone's death, this provides an example of a situation in which perhaps that belief gets suppressed in order to find yourself part of a larger group celebrating something like that. Sure, you could post a status saying that although you are happy that Osama's reign of terror is over, you don't support celebration of death - but that's only drawing attention to yourself, and it's much easier to just post a video of Homer Simpson. For people who already perhaps don't feel courageous enough to share their own voice, the internet can provide a digital record of that, and as I will state in my paper, further blurs the line people personal self and online self. I think that Lanier discusses indivualism on the internet in his book, but this was a point that I thought of while reading in relation to my musings on Facebook.