This week, the class provided the opportunity to see social annotation in action. Here is my effort toward social annotation.

I want the student to focus on the rationale behind the existence of the fourth dimension in social media where we create our picture-perfect world to escape reality. The author mentioned in the text, nowadays, untweeted, uninstagrammed moments might feel somehow cubic perhaps trapped within the perfect four-sided wall box and just about to sneak out if and only if the walls are contorted. I want the students to justify the psychological motivation behind sharing each and every moment on social media. What is it like to be trapped in a fictitious self-made reality full of expectations? Contextualize and address the tension to figure out just the perfect balance.

The author mentioned you dabble in other realities, then you should not expect to remain unchanged. I want the student to figure out What’s the effect of the four dimensions that inherently change human psychology and what is its impact on the community and society?  Trapped within Doll House, how does it impact the ability to recognize real problems like climate change? Contextualize real-world problems and how can you utilize social media and the fourth dimension to bring positive change to the shipwrecked world.

ANNOTATION 1:

We know that new technology always causes a stir—with champions and detractors rightly debating its implications. The internet is a newer technology, prompting heated discussion as we witness its effect real time. Being more connected and therefore able to share our observations, we also have an opportunity to investigate other institutions and the philosophies behind them to consider how they have also shaped us. We have been born into many longstanding institutions, (ex. public policy, cultural and social hierarchies, family, religions etc.) and have not felt the shock or dissonance of their arrival or evolution so we are not always conscious of their impact on our intellectual and emotional development. I wanted to invite students to look at other places in their lives where they may have been influence in highly impactful but “invisible” ways. 

“I was being freshly coded with certain expectations of the world, one of which seemed to be an unflagging belief in the responsiveness of others and which never seemed to learn from its disappointments. Digital technology was reshaping my responses, collaborating with my instincts acts, creating in me, its subject, all kinds of new sensitivities. In that sideways glance at the postcard, I could feel my place in history by the peculiar register of my uneasiness.”

Possible annotations:

• What other structures and institutions shape our “expectations of the world?”
• How much control over our experience within these spaces do we have? 
• What other sensations or experiences beyond the dissonance the author describes have made you aware of your “place in history.”

An interesting extension of this reading could be to write a similarly toned exploration imagining the arrival of technologies and modes of communication of the past (telegraph, phone, tv, novel, printing press etc.). 

ANNOTATION 2: 

The author uses most of the text to discuss the emotional and intellectual changes induced by interaction with the internet, only suggesting its physical impact. There’s a feeling of awe, inevitability, and distress all wrapped up in his witnessing the internets draw and impact. Building on his realization of his impossible expectation that the unsent postcard should garner a response, I am curious what other ways the rewiring of our expectations impact our relationship with the “analogue” world.  

“Going online can feel like a step on a homeward journey, where it is the abstract promise of home, rather than any real sense of the home itself, which matters”

Possible annotations:

• How do you think an intellectual and emotional construct of “home” compares to the experience of “home” rooted in physical time and place? Is one more desirable than the other? 
• What implications, if any, do you think the internet’s emphasis on mental engagement says about the future of our relationships to our physical selves and others?

Annotation/ Discussion :

• What are some other terms that are related to the “reverse peephole” concept described above? (e.g. digital surveillance)
• How have/ will these “reverse peepholes” manifest under different social structures? (e.g. capitalism vs. Political paradigm) 
• What are some key issues and concerns around these “reverse peepholes”? What are the pros and cons, and trade-offs of it?  
• What conditions/forces enabled the expansion of this “reverse peephole” landscape, under the age of digital surveillance? Who/what was fueling it? Who is pushing back and how? 

[Bonus] Check out these books if you’ve enjoyed this reading:

• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (written by Yuval Noah Harari) 
• The Three-Body Problem (science fiction novel written by Liu Cixin) 

Comment

I have really enjoyed this reading as it is beautifully written and touched on some interesting ideas with a solid yet palatable perspective. Considering we only read a small part of the book, I did not feel 100% ready to annotate for this Praxis Assignment as I feared the rest of the book might go in other directions which would make the annotation confusing/irrelevant for the students in the other class.

However, keeping that thought aside, my immediate thoughts were books that this reading reminded me of. I added their titles in the bonus section because I didn’t think it’d be fair for all students to research/ read these not-so-short books. I do however want to share them as I find them relevant and interesting.

I ended up annotating around one key phrase (“reverse peephole”), as it really captured my attention during my reading. I offered some discussion questions for the students to engage with this particular idea in the text.

For my annotations, I first chose the phrase

“In retrospect it seemed as though, in that deranged moment, I
had wakened to a process that had been quietly rewiring my life
for- a decade, more or less since I chose my first, cryptic email
address (imagine broadcasting my real name on ‘the internet’).”

• Here we see the author’s tone shift. How does it shift? What purpose does this serve for either the narrative or the reader? Explain.
• How do you think this tone shift changes how you read this passage if you were to read it a second time?
• How would you characterize the author based on this? Describe them using both literary terms and personal descriptors (for example, “unreliable narrator” and “pleasant”, respectively).

The second idea I had wasn’t a full annotation per se:

• How is The Reverse Peephole related to The Fourth Dimension? How is this introduction related to the primary text? Why are they juxtaposed? How does this change how you view either section of the work? Discuss.

The purpose of these annotations is to have students think more about how texts relate to not only other texts but also to their readers and authors. It was something that I really enjoyed (and still enjoy) observing!

For this week’s assignment on the theme of Digital Pedagogy and annotations I wanted to share with the other students my annotations on two particular topics that I found very engaging and open for further discussion in the introduction of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World (2015). My annotations would like to prompt the students to contextualize, debate and connect their own personal experiences with the statements presented by the author around isolation; as well as dig deeper into how the ‘four dimension’ of the digital not only affects our present but actually transforms our perception of the past, particularly, when the author explains that nowadays a moment that is not shared on social media is “flat” or “boxed in”.

Isolation

• In this section the author states that our idea of personhood ( in western philosophy) has been dominated by our feelings of isolation. He then cites examples from Descartes, Don Quixote, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens and others. Nonetheless, I would like to contextualize this idea with literature from other authors that have prompted us to look at ourselves not as individuals in constant search for ‘independence’ but rather as bodies in basic need of each other. Philosophers like Judith Butler, Toni Morrison or Gloria Anzaldúa have shared another vision of personhood by highlighting the ways in which beings are vulnerable or stand in between frontiers of contested meanings and identities. Could we be “fundamentally isolated” if, as vulnerable bodies, we depend on living with others in shared spaces to satisfy mutual needs? Could we think of ourselves as isolated if we live in complex webs of interdependency. Could the concept of vulnerability add another layer to our current and past ideas of personhood as experienced in this “fourth dimension” world? Do you think isolation and vulnerability opposed each other in our society or in your own life?

A Flat Moment?

• If we follow the idea that the four-dimension has affected our perception of the past and now the moments or experiences that we had might feel flat, if they were not shared on our networks, how does our evaluation of the past changes? how is this new dimension transforming our perception of time, attention and selfhood? How is this need to constantly share on social media or other networks connected to our ideas of productivity? Finally, here’s a video from artist Jenny Odell, about her book “How to Do Nothing”; how do you think “doing nothing” in our current world relates to this idea of the “flat moment”?

My annotation to Scott’s first chapter of The Four-Dimensional Human is related to the following passage:

I turned back to see the tame, daytime guise of that narrow little passageway, so inconvenient and improvised. My mind retraced the journey back through the passage, into the office and out into the landing, where the locked door protected its secrets. I smiled at my idiocy, for it was suddenly clear that, all along, it had been me inside the forbidden room. 
The desk's disarray, my papers and his papers, the computer and the rows of books, even the white sky outside, became vivid with realisation. I had been chasing myself. During those evening hours I had been simultaneously inside and outside the room. In art instant, all of my theories about its contents fell in on themselves, and the blankness was imprinted with a sudden picture, a selfie before its time.

Prompts to the students: in 1917, Pirandello, a Sicilian writer also known for being a precursor of the later existentialist Theatre of the Absurd, wrote a short novel called “La Carriola” (which translates into the wheelbarrow) where he describes the life of a professor and attorney who suddenly starts to see himself from the outside, consequently acknowledging his own misery and unhappiness. The epiphany is the product of the realisation that his job and daily activities are simply masks that prevent him for living an authentic life. His conclusion is that his real self has changed so profoundly, and possibly irreversibly, purely as a consequence of being unconsciously molded by other people’s expectations and perceptions. What’s your view on this?

Do you see a parallel between this century-old novel and Scott’s narration? If so, how can you extend it to the contemporary use of social media? Similarly, how can this awareness be a stimulus to an eyes-wide-open usage of digital tools? Would you say that Scott’s concerns around the fourth dimension somehow represent the acknowledgment of how media platforms constantly remind us of an increasing social pressure that stays with us even in the dark and solitude of our own private spaces?

For this assignment, I chose to annotate two similar but somewhat oppositional concepts presented in The Fourth Dimensional Human‘s “Introduction” chapter. My first annotation tackles the following excerpt from the text.

…our daily lives are a series of nets, any of which could be scored and bent at the perpendicular, and thus extended into this other dimension. Increasingly, the moments of our lives audition for digitisation [sic]. A view from the window, a meeting with friends, a thought, an instance of leisure or exasperation — they are all candidates, contestants, even for a dimensional upgrade.

xv

My annotation is somewhat of an instructional design prompt aiming to create discussion.

• Thinking about our analog existence (i.e., the hobbies, chores, routines, and activities in our lives that are not part of the digital existence), what are experiences that could be effectively improved by digitization that have not yet transcended to the “fourth dimension”? Conversely, what aspects of our current analog existence could never be digitized for improvement?

I chose this annotation because I think this is a somewhat crucial part of the text. As readers, we leave the situational narrative and are introduced into the concept of our current-day lives being upended by this concept of the fourth dimension through digitization. The quote I chose to remark on orients the reader and provides examples of how digitization can enter any slice of life. I felt this was a proper point to provide some context into what the author is driving at and to allow the reader to ponder the questions asked in the annotation.

The next part of the text that I annotated was somewhat necessary as a huge Seinfeld fan. The reference to the reverse peephole and that analogy of how it aligns with our current “fourth dimension” living situations was extremely on point to me. So I wanted to orient the student readers to this concept.

The reverse peephole is, in this sense, visionary in its anticipation of the digital revolution, a definitive anxiety of which is that our peepholes have been reversed without our knowing.

xvii

• In today’s world, there are fourth dimensional peepholes spread out across the modern home. In a sense, our homes are reversed much like Kramer’s. What are some examples of a way modern homes have been “reversed” from their analog past? What are the pros and cons to these reversals?

I wanted to get the student reader thinking about the benefits and downfalls of the digital invasion with homes. I want them to think about the benefits of having cameras on devices, “always on” audio assistants (e.g., Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa) and to tackle whether these are overall assets versus intrusions into our lives. I think this plays off my other annotation well. First, students will consider what they can and cannot digitize effectively. Then, they are asked to consider whether the already-digitized aspects of their lives are mostly positive or negative. This, I think, promotes some of the concepts the author is tackling.

After reading this week’s texts, the need for scaffolding and the importance of weaving assignment goals into overall course goals really stuck with me. (The readings have made me re-evaluate some of the assignments I use in my teaching.)

Consequently, I think that knowing more about the class’s overall context and learning goals would influence what annotations I would prioritize. 

One thing I would strongly consider annotating is the word “selfie” in the last sentence or, alternatively, this sentence on page xvi: “Today, we live with the sense that un-tweeted, un-instagrammed moments might feel somehow cubic, as·in boxed in, just these four walls, unless the walls can be contorted along invisible lines and a message smuggled out.”

This sentence could serve as a point of departure for developing a preparation/framing exercise on our existence in another/new-ish dimension. The following questions could be discussed with students before they re/read the text. 

• What is your definition of “selfie”? 
• What do you pay attention to when you take a selfie (if you do)? 
• Are there rules for taking a good/share-worthy selfie? 
• When/where do people often take selfies? & What else (other than the self) is often in the picture? 
• When people share selfies, what kind of verbal context might be typical?” 
• How does the selfie transform the experience?”

Since the text is about existing/living online, these electronic proofs of 4-dimensional existence are worthy of deconstruction. I hope students would close-read and develop a deeper and more critical understanding of the selfie genre, its deceptions, limits, and possibilities.

***

Another passage on page xvi: “[They] decide to reverse the peepholes in their apartment doors so as ‘to· prevent an ambush’. The idea is that, on returning home, they can check if an assailant is waiting inside to ‘clock them with a sock full of pennies’.” 

In the annotation, I would pose the following questions: 

• Where in the text do you see other distinctions (or separations) between inside/s and outside/s? 
• And related: what are separations or “walls” between these inside/s and outside/s? 

These questions would foreground the 4th dimension’s transgression of our assumed understanding of physical space. They would let students track how Scott plays with this transgression by repeatedly creating and dismantling spaces and spatial experiences. The tension between different insides and outsides was the most prevalent tension I noticed. 

***

And, for context, I might share these audio and image files that illustrate the classic dial-up modem related to the passage on page xiv: “The first household modems enforced this separation by acting as though they were grinding up against something hard,. squealing and whirring like a drill hitting rock.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO Either listen to the link and/or look at the pictures below. The first picture needs 20-25 seconds and the next one requires 5-10 seconds of patience, and the last one truly captures the celebratory feeling of landing online. Voila – you’re connected. (Maybe.)

I would annotate the following two sections in the introduction to Laurence Scott’s The Four Dimensional Human: Ways of being in the Digital World:

Today, we live with the sense that un-tweeted, un-instagrammed moments might feel somehow cubic, as in boxed in, just these four walls, unless the walls can be contorted along invisible lines and a message smuggled out. Few people have trouble finding such a smuggler now; it’s a mass industry, this smuggling of life into four dimensions (xvi).

Prompt for students: Consider your personal experience documenting and sharing moments from your life on social media. When you share text, an image or a video online, do you feel that you are sharing or creating an authentic representation of yourself? Does sharing representations of your life experiences in digital form make those experiences feel more “real,” or do you feel differently? 

A crucial tension of our times is that, although we can luxuriate in this gained dimension, stretching our lives into the world like never before, we are simultaneously asked to ignore, deny, accept, strategise or rail against the hypothesis that our physical planet is diminishing (xxi).

Prompt for students: How do you interpret this tension? Does the digital dimension serve more strongly as a catalyst for action, or as an escapist distraction from the social and environmental challenges facing our world?