“Seeing Ourselves Through Technology” Chapter 1 Reflection

In Jill Walker Rettburg’s book, Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves, she describes visual, written, and quantitive ways of self representation. From the title, I expected the book to focus more on the why and how humans use technology, yet I was disappointed. In the first few pages of the book, I was wanted to know why humans were so drawn to see themselves through technology in the first place. I was intrigued by the fact that the first diaries began for a religious purpose, but I did not see how it applied to the main idea of the book. There is one area of the book that I wished Rettburg dung into more, and that was her segment on the use of the camera.  In today’s world, people are starting to stand up again stereotypes and “norms” from taking fitness pictures flexed and relaxed with the caption, “this is me and so is this” to just taking selfies without makeup on. These “stand up” posts are just starting to emerge because for years people have been creating profiles and taking pictures that hide their flaws. So, when Rettburg mentions Warwick’s idea of an outstretched arm indicating embracement, I couldn’t help but agree in the sense that people are forcing others to embrace the “filtered” version of themselves. With technology, humans can figuratively copy and paste themselves onto a profile, then delete the parts of them that they hope to hide from viewers. With technology, humans can open up their Instagram and see their filtered faces and perfected lives with images that they put onto the internet for viewers to see. Unfortunately, this may sometimes backfire on individuals, and these selfies are mocked.

Rettburg’s next topic in chapter one of her book describes the era of selfie hate emerging, and who’s selfies are praised while others are mocked. Rettburg’s ideas were more focused on why celebrities actions online are appreciated and the average individuals are criticized, and I don’t necessarily agree. As a 21st century teenager, I live in the generation of the first selfie-takers. From my perspective, the selfie itself  is not the problem, but the in real life process of taking one is. Many people scroll through social media unbothered by the self-taken images of individuals or groups, but taking a selfie in public is quite awkward for the individual and everyone around. The selfie is just one more cause for decreasing communication among peers. Having the simple ability to flip a camera and take a picture without outside assistance gives individuals one more reason to not have to communicate with others. This decreasing communication is causing humans to practically dissolve into their devices and we focus on perfecting our digitalized image more than our personal image. People care more about capturing the perfect image of themselves for the internet than about how strange they look sticking their arm out in public. The only reason celebrities are left alone on the subject is because today’s society praises the ground they walk on. This is the information that I was expecting to read in Rettburg’s book, the whys and the reasoning behind why individuals need to see themselves through technology. Don’t get me wrong, I did derive a lot from her book, but I hoped that the book itself would have taken the time to dive into the reasons why individuals see themselves through technology in the way that they do, and less on what types of technology humans use.

Rettberg, Jill W. Seeing Ourselves through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and                 Wearable Devices to See and … Shape Ourselves. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.