Every day we read items in the newspapers about the impact of social media on our lives. Have we lost even the possibility of privacy? Is our attention span diminished? Are young people obsessed by selfies? This lecture will provide an overview of an extensive research project on the use and consequences of social media around the world that is resulting in 11 open access books that try and provides a more authoritative guide to the impact of social media on society.
The project saw nine anthropologists each spend 15 months living in eight countries in communities as varied as an English village, a factory town in China, and a community on the Turkish-Syrian border, an IT complex set in villages within south India, a low income settlement in Brazil, as well as sites in Chile, Italy and Trinidad. We were able to address questions such as - has social media made us more similar or more different from each other? How has it changed human communication? Does it make us more individualist and what impacts has it had on areas such as commerce, education, gender and politics? In conclusion, the talk will indicate how this comparative global project can also be turned into new forms of global education.
The visit was organized on the initiavive of the Club of fans of the Inbernet and society.
Internet beyond the numbers conferention of the Club: http://internetbeyond.net/