Social Proprioception comes from the phenomenon proprioception that tells a creature where its extremities are by the reception of stimuli produced within the organism. Clive Thompson describes social proprioception as the idea that we are aware of what people in our extended social circles are doing without having direct contact with them. For example, we can go on Facebook or Twitter and find out what are friends are doing by viewing their posts or tweets. This is a huge change from traditional methods of communication such as writing letters or calling a friend to exchange information. While social media might make it easier to communicate and share information with a larger audience, there are also negative consequences. Some might argue that older forms of communication were more authentic or meaningful and that there is an issue of oversharing information with social media. There are also issues of privacy as well as anxiety caused by people being overwhelmed with messages and updates.
Dissonance occurs when something disrupts your consonance. It challenges beliefs and causes discomfort. We are naturally inclined to seek consonance. Cultural dissonance is a feeling of disharmony or confusion amidst a shift in the cultural environment, which is often unexpected and difficult to understand. Cognitive dissonance occurs within an individual when there is an inconsistency between one’s attitudes and behaviors. This causes discomfort and results in a change in attitudes, beliefs or behavior as we naturally seek consistency among our thoughts and actions. Dissonance can be used as a technique in art and design to challenge the viewer’s perception.
Feedback Loop is a chain of events that occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect. This relates to the open system model used in nonprofit management where resources are transformed to products or services and then the income is put back into the corporation. The use of technology in our daily lives effects our rhythms and becomes part of our feedback loop. We use technology to both give and receive information and this affects the patterns of life as well as how we communicate.
Compression: Compressing an image is the act of reducing the size or number of bytes in the image without compromising the quality of the image. Photographs are usually compressed into JPEGs which means the image becomes flat and all the layers are put together. This makes the file size smaller and more manageable. GIF is the time of file compression for line art. The amount of quality lost in compression is usually not noticeable and makes it easier to upload photos to the internet and share files.
Thirds Place/Space: Third space is defined as a place that is not home and not work/school but another place where you can meet friends, watch TV, listen to music and build a sense of togetherness. The internet has become a sort of virtual third space where we share ideas and interact, but there is a lot of overlap between home and work. Many times it is beneficial to set boundaries between the use of the internet for personal and work or school as the boundaries between these spaces are increasingly blurred. In some ways we are more connected but at the same time we are more isolated as technology takes the place of face-to-face contact.