I embarked on a journey more than eight weeks ago, and the result is the podcast above. My journey began by reading a book titled, “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto” by Jaron Lanier. I wrote a book review, and expressed my less-than-satisfactory opinion of the book. It just wasn’t for me.
Despite my confusion and frustration while reading the book, it sparked the idea to combine two concepts Lanier mentions: neoteny and trolling. Neoteny describes the behavior of an adult displaying characteristics of a child. Lanier describes how social media encourages, or at least provides an opportunity for, people who seek attention in a child-like way. Trolling is a term used to describe online bullying. I decided to combine the two terms with theories of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to see where it led.
I decided that instead of exploring trolling, I would focus on rude, passive-aggressive, or inappropriate behavior online. Facebook is the medium of choice for most of my social circle, so I focused on Facebook for the research. Using communication theory to understand the causes for bad behavior, I developed a Digital and Media Literacy podcast to educate my fellow “Generation X” (1965-1980) Facebook users.
Here is an Annotated Bibliography citing all references and explaining my evaluation of the literature I used for my research.