Effort and Personhood

Like Diana and Kelly, I really enjoyed the Cohen article. In terms of style, I enjoyed how Cohen includes Beacon posts throughout his essay. In terms of content, this article made me question a lot about personhood, what it means and how it has changed even more since Cohen wrote the article 8 years ago.

Our personhood is constantly changing, especially since the developments of social media. “Personhood is at stake as well in any space of mediated encounter where what happens in that space is built upon a very partial knowledge of someone that might never become part of a whole: queries, likes, pokes, flame wars, emoticons, spam, lurking, a vast and growing diacritics of encounter” (33). I personally felt I didn’t need to go to my 10 year high school class reunion because the people from high school that are my friends, I talk to on a regular basis, and the people who are not my friends in real life but are “friends” on Facebook, I feel I know enough about them through their posts that doesn’t require personal interactions. How do you bring up conversations with people that you haven’t spoken to in 10 years but you know a lot of details about their life because of social media? Being “friends” with someone on Facebook requires effort than being friends in real life. This goes back to personhood and what is at stake. Cohen asks, “What would have to change in our conception of personhood to admit these as such and not as parts of wholes? What has already changed in our encounters with others? Or more precisely, what has already changed about the form in which others appear and are made available—made available through that queasy admixture of intention and algorithm that I’ve been exploring throughout the book—for encounter in the space between populations and publics?” (5-6). How can we feel a “kind of togetherness” (9), while also being disconnected from people at the same time?