The Smartphone Society by Nicole Aschoff

Author:Nicole Aschoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beacon Press

Finding Our Voice

The personalization of politics afforded by mobile social media has created a new way of doing politics that is central to the movements that have emerged in the past decade. But like all politics, it’s messy. One of the messiest elements of the emergent digital-analog model is how explosive politics has become. Love turns to rage in an instant. Viral whiplash surrounded Keaton Jones, the kid whose mom posted a video of Keaton tearfully describing being bullied at school. One moment the boy was awash in public sympathy and affection, the next he was collectively scorned when a photo of his mother posing in front of a Confederate flag was posted online.

Writing in the wake of public furor over whether the children’s show Peppa Pig created unreal expectations of Britain’s National Health Service, Ashley “Dotty” Charles, a UK rapper and BBC announcer, warned against the increasing prominence of outrage politics. As a Black, gay woman Charles said she had learned to become selective in her anger: “If we are all outraged all of the time, then outrage simply becomes the default setting. By shouting about everything, we are creating a deafening silence where outrage is without consequence.”54

Moreover, with so much of our smartphone politics defined by digital engagement with people and networks it becomes difficult to parse genuine political expression, debate, and movement building from “virtue signaling” and narcissistic self-promotion. The personalization of politics has made politics extremely performative. More and more, political ideas and movements are associated with YouTube and Twitter personalities. With so many people and personalities on the web, and a growing obsession with “likes” and followers, many choose to differentiate themselves by appearing to be the most righteous, whatever their political persuasion, engaging in flame wars of little political value. It’s the next iteration of politics as spectacle.

We can’t blame narcissism for everything, however, tempting as it may be. Some of the mayhem is caused or enhanced by digital profit-generating strategies and algorithmic mischief. For example, bots are automated programs that run on the internet and pretend to be humans and, sometimes, are designed to push people’s political buttons. “Jenna Abrams,” a memorable bot who managed to garner seventy thousand followers on Twitter, was created by a troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Trump-loving bot’s calls for resegregation and efforts to delegitimize “manspreading” had thousands of people taking time out of their day to argue with “her” online.55

The tech titans also want to keep us on their sites, so they use their algorithms to feed us what they think we want to see. Cass R. Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor, worries about the polarizing impact this insulation will have on the body politic. He says, “Social media makes it easier for people to surround themselves (virtually) with the opinions of likeminded others and insulate themselves from competing views.” Likening social media to a disease vector, Sunstein surmises that it is “potentially dangerous for democracy and social peace.”56 In

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