"Siri, send Mike that shitpost at 5:15pm EST"
Response 1
Author Limor Shifman, a senior lecturer working at the communications department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argues in her 2013 scholarly monograph: Memes in Digital Culture that Internet Memes are a complex and important topic which academia ought to pay attention to. It is precisely this blindspot in academia that Shifman hopes to alleviate with her book. I personally couldn’t agree more with Shifman’s treatment of memes as “highly relevant” with the capacity to quickly shape the social attitudes of those exposed to them. (Shifman 171) Whether it be TikTok’s capacity to broaden a users repertoire of hateful isims or the power of memes to fight authoritarian rule, one thing holds common: their influence. Disregarding memes in our current era would be as foolish as disregarding colloquial spoken language. Academia respecting and understanding Internet Memes and internet culture is of utmost importance as social media becomes a staple in our lives, representing over two and a half hours per day of the average americans life.
Response 2
In his 2022 article, “Text Messaging Is Cool. But Where Are Its Boundaries?” New York Times technology columnist Brian X. Chen comments on how some of the same features that make texting great can make it hard to set boundaries and leaves many wondering where “work end[s], and…personal life begin[s].” (Chen) I find this topic particularly interesting because not only is this an issue that effects me personally, but it's also an interesting (and ongoing) case study in how our social norms and structure adapt to new technologies. According to Chen, there are three big things we need in order to improve texting: We need an away message,” “...a scheduling tool,” and for “... Apple and Google to work together.” (Chen) While I don’t doubt that those changes would be helpful, I wonder if Chen’s suggestions focus to heavily on the software and too little on the social rules that we apply to the use of the software. I would much rather live in a world where my boss already respects the temporal boundaries of the work environment instead of one where they are gently reminded by a piece of software to do so.