Prompt 3

Mark Mozina

Sherry Turkle covers extensively in her book Alone Together the effects technology has on communication.  While she mainly focuses on robots and texting, her ideas can easily be transferred to the internet.  The ability of people to hide behind a screen and have the guts to say things they would never say in person can be a huge part of online interaction.  The loss of accountability is a key factor in this process as people do not have to take responsibility for things they post anonymously on the internet.  In a way, this enables people to “edit” themselves and show the world the people they desire to be rather than who they actually are.  This problem does not stem from the technology itself but rather from the people using it.  While the advancements in technology have enabled more communication than ever, the perversion of the system means that these conversations mean less than ever. 

    As seen in the documentary Catfish, technology offers opportunities for people to connect and interact that would not be possible otherwise.  Unfortunately, some unscrupulous people use technology for their own gain and do not worry if they will hurt other people.  In the case of Angela and Nev, Angela had limited personal freedom because she had to take care of a set of special-needs twins.  In order to cope with her lack of an outside life, she concocted a fantastic story to continue her relationship with Nev.  While nothing harmed Angela in this case, Nev was put through the wringer.  During the documentary, Nev changed dramatically from a happy-go-lucky guy at the beginning to a budding cynic by the end as a result of Angela’s trickery.  There are numerous cases of people being “catfished” by others on the internet and this was a good representative sample.  Usually the catfishee is harmed much more than the catfisher since the person being duped typically ends up having a much greater emotional attachment on top of dealing with the shock factor.

The image from the cover of Catfish is representative of the entire movie.  In the picture, two different pixelated faces are shown separated by a banner that says, “Catfish…Think before you click.”  This picture stands for the deception inherent in the documentary.  The pixilation represents that people can hide behind false identities and that a picture seen over the internet might not actually be what it seems.  The split screen indicates the ability of two people’s lives to become intertwined over the internet, despite never having seen each other in real life.  The documentary operates solely on this premise, so the image is foreboding of what is to come.