Our Post-human Selves and the need for Communication.

Our posts’ that we publish on Facebook are our ways to communicate with each other, to think that Facebook as a narrative that we are able to communicate with about ‘thing’s’ that we humans like on a virtual network that can be seen by anyone around the globe is very post-human in the sense that human beings are no longer communicating by letters to friends and family but now through technology to everyone. Posting on Facebook has become a networked narrative in which most of the world’s population participates in (McNeill. 2012). “ [...] millions of individuals on a daily basis now produce online selves in interaction with both other people and software applications” (Mcneill. 2012. p.65). These posts can be thought of as a way we create our identity and how we wish to be seen (Kuttainen. 2016). The constant reconstruction of the self on Facebook, because of its influence it has on the individual compelling them to become more and more involved in posts, creates post-human life narratives in their digital lives (McNeill. 2012. p.67).

Post-humanism

I worry that Facebook is killing meaningful communication (Jokideo.com (n/d))
 critiques the humanist ideals of the self, that humans are not always singular or rational, and that society determines who we are, how we feel and how we identify ourselves. Challenging the line in between human and technology, stating that we humans have become ‘cyborgs’, metaphorically linking the human relationship with technology, to our daily communication with others in the human population on a networked narrative that is Facebook (Kuttainen. 2016). “The digital era complicates [the] definitions of the self and its boundaries, both dismantling and sustaining the humanist subject in practices of personal narratives” (McNeill. 2012. p.65). While these posts that we publish on Facebook are post-human they are not anti-human because we use Facebook as a way to communicate with others, and not to shut them out.




Reference list:

Jokideo.com. (n/d). I worry that Facebook is killing meaningful communication [image]. Retrieved from http://jokideo.com/i-worry-that-facebook-is-killing-meaningful-communication/

McNeill, L. (2012). There is no “i” in network: Social networking sites and posthuman auto/biography. Biography, 35(1), 65-82. doi:10.1353/bio.2012.0009


Kuttainen, V. (2016). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, week 6 notes [powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au