Roberto Simanowski:
Facebook Society – Losing Ourselves in Sharing Ourselves
Columbia University Press 2018

Simanowski contends that while they are often denounced as outlets for narcissism and self-branding, social networks and the practices they cultivate in fact remake the self in their image. Sharing is the outsourcing of one’s experiences, encouraging unreflective self-narration rather than conscious self-determination. Instead of experiencing the present, we are stuck ceaselessly documenting and archiving it. We let our lives become episodic autobiographies whose real author is the algorithm lurking behind the interface. As we go about accumulating more material for the platform to arrange for us, our sense of self becomes diminished—and Facebook shapes a subject who no longer minds. Social-media companies’ relentless pursuit of personal data for advertising purposes presents users with increasingly targeted, customized information, attenuating cultural memory and fracturing collective identity.

Für Angehörige der Universität Hildesheim als E-Book verfügbar:
https://doi.org/10.7312/sima18272

Die deutschsprachige Originalausgabe unter dem Titel “Facebook-Gesellschaft” ist als Printversion vorhanden.