Author Archives: Anca Micheti
Anca Micheti | Critical Mass Calgary
Cultural theorists, from Michael Foucault to Judith Butler, have said it a long time ago: identity is not fixed and determined by demographics, but fluid and multifaceted. It is, to a certain extent, what we want it to be. It is a performance we put on for the world.
Social media makes this identity performance easier than ever. With more than 400 million active Facebook users and 73.5 million visitors to Twitter each month, it has allowed us to become content producers and consequently public performers of our identities. Every digital imprint we leave on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, every blog post, review or tag is an opportunity for identity play. And who’s to say that each and all of these performances are not “the real me,” even if they’re not necessarily consistent with each other, and maybe each paints only a partial picture of who I “really” am. (more…)
This is a time here at Critical Mass when we’re trying to wrap our heads around the idea of extraordinary experiences: what makes them extraordinary and how they make us feel. So Curious couldn’t miss the opportunity of putting these questions in front of ShopTalk, our online research community that we regularly tap for insight and ideas. Their incredible stories of everything from giving birth to flying planes, and from running a marathon to surviving cancer, have got me thinking.
First, few experiences are extraordinary in themselves. The extraordinary really depends on what your ordinary looks like. Skydiving is extraordinary for someone doing it for the first time, but quite ordinary for their instructor. A bank branch in your neighborhood is quite boring in a developed country, but was extraordinary for my parents a few years ago in developing Romania. So the number one quality of extraordinary is that it’s relative. What makes it extraordinary it that it’s surprising, relative to what you know, what you expect and what you take for granted.
Secondly, what makes an experience extraordinary has a lot to do with the meanings you infuse into the experience in retrospect. Many community members talked about moments that opened their eyes to a new reality, from a stranger’s simple but unexpected act of kindness to surviving a terrible accident. So another essential quality of an extraordinary experience is that it’s memorable. It stays with you. There is a before and after an extraordinary experience, because it changes the way you look at things, or the way you do them.
Among the technologies that benefit parenting, webcams are gaining increasingly more ground and not necessarily for the obvious reason of monitoring the kids remotely. With a service like Skype, technology is used in ways that have strong emotional implications, and can create more meaningful experiences for families that have to spend time apart.
Curious recently asked moms in the ShopTalk research community about their use of technology in parenting, and here are some of the things we found out. Stay-at-home moms say that Skype has allowed them to feel less isolated at home and enabled their partners to be more involved in parenting.
“I always have my computer nearby, so I can stay in touch with my husband. My son (6 months) and I chat with him on the webcam via Skype almost every day. It is amazing how easy it is to see him when he is halfway around the world. The webcam has allowed my son to still see his daddy regularly and not forget who he is.” (Megan, 29)
Working moms love this technology because it alleviates some of the tensions arising from the struggle between motherhood and career. Many said they used to feel guilty for not spending enough time with their young children. But being able to connect with them from work through Skype has allowed moms to be more present in their kids’ lives and experience their growth.
“When I was working full time, I was unable to see and bond with my son during the day and it drove me nuts not being able to check in from time to time. Taking time off work or constant calling was sort of disruptive and annoyed everyone around me. After getting a wireless camera I was able to check online whenever I wanted and see how he was doing. When the technology got better, rather than just a one way feed, where I was the only one able to hear and see, both of us could see and interact with each other.” (Jen, 26) (more…)
