Ava published a great piece on the way social media platforms exploit our desire for human connection.

Which is why the need for connectivity in the way these companies mean it and push it is a big lie just to further their financial interests and has nothing to do with how humans actually pursue, facilitate and experience true connection, and we need to question it.

Below are some scattered thoughts on this topic and the relationship between us and cyberspace.

In the fall of 2021 I had the pleasure of taking Amy Reed-Sandoval’s seminar on the Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance. Philosopher Cécile Fabre even gave a guest lecture on the ethics of espionage, clarifying for us that what governments and platforms were doing with our data was exactly that.

This was after things began picking up in the US following the pandemic, and as most of us had gotten used to spending a considerable part of our days online, it seemed particularly relevant to understand what privacy and surveillance meant in the context of working, studying, socializing, and being online.

During this time I conceived of the digital world as an extension of the environments with which we interact. I didn’t believe digital personas to be an alter ego, I saw them as one more form of self-expression.

There are of course different attitudes regarding the relationship between the physical world and cyberspace.

For example, Ava goes on to write:

I can only speak for myself, but the reason why I would be able to be completely alone, unread and ignored online is because I already get all the connection I need offline. Online is a bonus, or a fallback. Not to mention that it could overlap and only my offline relationships could read my blog. Would that not be enough?

Yes, that is exactly what we should be doing! Identifying how each of us inhabits cyberspace is the key to setting boundaries, managing expectations, and maintaining a good balance between the physical world and cyberspace. And these can look different for each of us, and we don’t have to agree, because the relationship between the individual and the digital world is cultivated by each person. I would call these “real life” and “the internet” or something along those lines, but I think that falls short. We have to acknowledge that for some folks, whether it be by choice or circumstance, cyberspace is a real, habitable environment.

This is why people defend freedom of speech online, along with privacy, encryption, and the infrastructure which makes it all possible. All of these are fundamental so you can even begin establishing a relationship with cyberspace on your own terms.

If we are to reconcile the differences between the physical and digital worlds, we must start by recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of each one as they pertain to the individual.

We will disagree on what these are, however, which is one of the reasons why we constantly see new articles and posts in which people analyze their own relationship to technology and proceed to make sweeping, normative declarations on what we ought to do because of the way things are. No one is exempt from this, and in fact these are helpful to read because the experiences of others broaden our options and inform our opinions. I’m thinking for example of posts where we may talk about how we use e-mail, or how we use RSS, or why we quit Instagram, so on and so forth.

In the spirit of learning more about these topics, I want to share with you some of the readings from that seminar. They’re grouped by topic, and this list is certainly not exhaustive, but it’s a good way to learn about what work is being done to identify and engage with issues pertaining to the relationship between people and cyberspace. These readings had a big influence on how I began to think about technology and the role I let it play in my life. And it’s only going to get more interesting as the future comes closer to us.