Avoiding "Lock-In"

In Zadie Smith's article titled "Generation Why?" she examines the technological affects on social relationships and, more importantly, the Self. In the first half of her article she sums up the movie The Social Network, in which tells the story of how Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook.

The Social Network- Trailer

She later goes on to question how Facebook has changed the way we interact with one another and how it has changed our expectation of social interactions. She brings up Jaron Lanier's book You are Not a Gadget. In Lanier's book he talks about how the way we use the internet today reduces ourselves in order to fit an edited profile of our true selves. He claims that the information we put out on the internet underrepresents who we really are.

Jaron Lanier's Interview with Alex Krotoski

Smith agrees with many points Lanier makes about the limitations of today's technology. She explains, 

"When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose our bodies, our messy feelings, our desires, our fears."

On one hand I do express similar fears about the effects of today's technology on our social relationships. It is obvious to me that our social interactions and expectations have drastically changed because of these technological advances. However, on the other hand I feel that a large part of what defines the Self (especially here in America) is having a choice/ the ability to choose. When it comes to social online platforms, such as Facebook, one can choose how to use this software in order  to (hopefully) enhance their relationships with the people they know. People have the choice of what to do with this software and how often they will make use of it. However, the problem arises when people are ONLY using one such platform, like Facebook. Then they are narrowing themselves to the limitations of the software. But if people are using other platforms and blogs to express themselves, in addition to Facebook, then I feel that the Self, the FULL Self, is still preserved.