Hi, I’m Laura Rodriguez and I currently work as a User-Experience Designer at IBM. Despite my undying love for unnecessary quotation marks and the overuse of the term ‘social’ (as jargon to describe…well, anything being marketed to humans), I still ended up with a blog named social”social.“ The truth is: WordPress has a limited amount of blog titles left and I couldn’t think of anything else. (Over-thinking it later, I actually came up with a compelling concept for repeating the word in “witty” quotes!) Nevertheless, as someone who once owned www.laurarodriguezgraphicdesigner.com, I simply opted to keep it short.
Recently I graduated from NC State University, with my Master of Graphic Design, where I cultivated an interest in social media that can be traced in this MGD blog. My final project (abstract below) speculated about a tool for online safety designed specifically for the 18-24 year old demographic group. The research required for that project absolutely consumed me, and once it was over I didn’t want to stop. So, after the recent introductions of Klout and Google+, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm anymore and had to find an outlet for my design-centric analysis of social media trends.
Curious about the trajectory of online networks and how we connect virtually or (as a rare added bonus) how we use technology to connect physically, I aim to explore our relationship with technology while speculating towards the future. Having used sites like Facebook and Myspace since college, and blogging privately for years prior, I have a tendency to be biased towards the “good ‘ole days” when everything was intimate and generally carefree. Now, mass amounts of information is being shared online, leveraged by big business, and the term social is stuffed to capacity. What is being pushed as a social experience today, like fast food restaurants wanting to be your “friend,” is vastly different from just five years ago. So, with a daring nod towards social-purism, I look to question what we already lost and what is being gained in this fast moving evolution. Join me?
Abstract:
“Mindful Social Networking: Cognitive Artifacts for Reflective Cognition.”
Younger generations are redefining privacy by how much information they feel comfortable outputting online. The concept of consequences has not yet resonated among younger online social networkers. The news media is quick to cover the latest stories on our digital fingerprint catching up to us, but there are no tools out there—other than authoritative parental control software—to turn to for help. While we know the potential for harm is out there, we are solely reliant on ourselves to social network more safely. Participants, specifically 18-24-year-olds, are performing online friendships that are extensions of their physical friendships without understanding the unique affordances of networked sociality: persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences. All of their old interactions are being prolonged online, contributing to the susceptibility of the future-self, and can be particularly problematic when transitioning into the workplace. This age group is at a pivotal point because they currently output the most information and are no longer under parental control. This project speculates how a cognitive artifact, or man-made extension of our memory, could help social networking participants be more reflective about their information output. My visual research is developed within Facebook’s architecture, but the main idea of my project is not exclusive to this interface. Research towards mitigating risk online is a highly relevant area of investigation that moves digital media forward, all the while helping people manage networked sociality.
