I've recently been toying with ideas about how media and technology affect traditional morality. And I've discovered something. IT IS A SPIRAL THAT NEVER ENDS!! The image below essentially expresses the state of my brain for the last two days.
Not good. So if you're reading this and all you can think is "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas (or the realm of logical thought) anymore!" then just click your heels three times and think of home. Sorry for the confusion. Or, you can stick around as I search for the yellow brick road to coherence. Bring it on.
How is media and morality a spiral, you might ask? I think my initial problem comes down to a tendency to analyze everything at once. You can't cram all million and a half aspects of morality into one blog post, Erica! Stop trying! But lets face it. Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, is swimming with sin. Like most good novels, it presents the issue panoramically, with each of the characters responding to and interacting with sin in different ways. If any text is going to set my head spinning about morality, this is it. When it comes to media, I don't think I need to tell anyone just how much is out there. We've all seen it. User-generated content (that is my primary focus when I say media) also encompasses a wide moral spectrum, ranging from innocent to offensive to who knows what! (Cat videos, anyone?) The point is- ties between media and morality are endless. Here is my highlight of the day:
Confession vs. Concealment
Not to oversimplify things, but I would suggest that every transgression eventually falls into one of those two categories. And in no small coincidence, this analytic lens applies fabulously to both The Scarlet Letter and to modern uses of technology. As we are all human, and all prone to make mistakes, it makes sense that this tendency to confess or conceal would manifest itself online. But how?
First, confession. Social media provides the ultimate outlet for this; if you've got something to say, you can choose who sees it, the site on which you post it, who has the ability to
comment on it, and even the color, font, and size in which it appears. You've got access to pictures, videos, music, and anything digital to help you illustrate the information you wish to share. In fact, there are whole websites dedicated to this "guilty secret sharing" concept, like Six Billion Secrets and Post Secret. WARNING: Do not spend more than three minutes on these sites! They are incredibly depressing and occasionally inappropriate. There isn't really such thing as a happy secret, I discovered after a mind-numbing 30 minutes surfing these and other sites. So why the need to confess?? Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale explains it like this, "Why should a wretched man, guilty, we will say, of murder, prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!" The internet serves as the perfect universe upon which to fling one's sinful burden. It has no face, no name, and no censuring gaze. Or perhaps it does- but an invisible one, by which the transgressor attempts to relieve the need for judgment and redemption while still escaping the full force of condemnation.
On the other hand, we have concealment. Even as they facilitate self exposure and confession, the internet and social media are also perfect tools with which to craft a careful front of falsehood. Should someone desire to hide a misdeed or personal flaw, the virtual reality of the digital media makes that very possible. Not totally possible, mind you, but very. We've all experienced some degree of this in our interactions with social media, whether it's witholding certain pictures from Facebook, tweeting something especially cheerful/spiritual/attractive even if it isn't absolutely sincere, or refraining from "Like"-ing that group or thing for which people might judge us derisively. The Reverend identifies with those who attempt to construct that spotless identity, and explains that "to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, loking pure as new-fallen snow; while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves." Though some seek to escape from sin in an online world that can't hold them accountable, this form of social deception does not discount the deed. Rather, it serves as a self-protective mechanism against the harsh judgment of the world, and the world wide web.
Perhaps the binding tie between these two opposite phenomena is their ineffectual online nature. One cannot truly gain the freedoms of confession by incriminating oneself online, nor can human flaw really be kept from the ever-reaching arms of the internet. Just some thoughts.
First, confession. Social media provides the ultimate outlet for this; if you've got something to say, you can choose who sees it, the site on which you post it, who has the ability to
comment on it, and even the color, font, and size in which it appears. You've got access to pictures, videos, music, and anything digital to help you illustrate the information you wish to share. In fact, there are whole websites dedicated to this "guilty secret sharing" concept, like Six Billion Secrets and Post Secret. WARNING: Do not spend more than three minutes on these sites! They are incredibly depressing and occasionally inappropriate. There isn't really such thing as a happy secret, I discovered after a mind-numbing 30 minutes surfing these and other sites. So why the need to confess?? Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale explains it like this, "Why should a wretched man, guilty, we will say, of murder, prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!" The internet serves as the perfect universe upon which to fling one's sinful burden. It has no face, no name, and no censuring gaze. Or perhaps it does- but an invisible one, by which the transgressor attempts to relieve the need for judgment and redemption while still escaping the full force of condemnation. 
On the other hand, we have concealment. Even as they facilitate self exposure and confession, the internet and social media are also perfect tools with which to craft a careful front of falsehood. Should someone desire to hide a misdeed or personal flaw, the virtual reality of the digital media makes that very possible. Not totally possible, mind you, but very. We've all experienced some degree of this in our interactions with social media, whether it's witholding certain pictures from Facebook, tweeting something especially cheerful/spiritual/attractive even if it isn't absolutely sincere, or refraining from "Like"-ing that group or thing for which people might judge us derisively. The Reverend identifies with those who attempt to construct that spotless identity, and explains that "to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, loking pure as new-fallen snow; while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves." Though some seek to escape from sin in an online world that can't hold them accountable, this form of social deception does not discount the deed. Rather, it serves as a self-protective mechanism against the harsh judgment of the world, and the world wide web.Perhaps the binding tie between these two opposite phenomena is their ineffectual online nature. One cannot truly gain the freedoms of confession by incriminating oneself online, nor can human flaw really be kept from the ever-reaching arms of the internet. Just some thoughts.
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