With the advent of Web 2.0, a new resource with the capability of collating the collective intelligence we harness was initiated. It is a means by which each an individual can actively create and modify information, submitted almost globally, on a single, ubiquitous platform. However, to be able to comprehend this practice we must look deeper, and endeavour to fully contextualise the knowledge shared through this platform and the effects this new medium of obtaining knowledge has on shaping the way we perceive the world around us.
Predating the inception of social media giant Facebook by over 130 years, Nietzsche’s ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’ has striking connotation in the age of online existence. Our personal, offline lives are becoming ever more embroiled in online socialisation, but is this contributory or tantamount to defining ourselves. Nietzsche notes, ‘What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case (1873)?’ Could this be perceived as a paradigm for online profiles? Nietzsche’s ‘lighted display case’ could be taken as a modern metaphor for our Facebook, Twitter or YouTube profiles. Dependent upon their usage and indulgence in such websites, users share their thoughts and collate their relationships and their interests in a public space.
However, our association with specific people and groups merely expands our personal assent; in the same way people may only read a newspaper that indulges their specific political persuasion (Kenny 2007: 149). Hence, man cannot ‘perceive himself completely’ through interaction with social media outlets. That said do social mediums have the capacity to shape, not our perception of ourselves, but our perception of the world around us?
Nietzsche asserts that ‘from boredom and necessity, man wishes to exist socially’ (1873). The shift in social existence from offline to a combination of offline and online is still encompassing of this ideology. The remit of socialisation is extended through social media, allowing us to be in a social environment whilst being physically alone; consequently we can remedy our boredom through continual socialisation. Nietzsche also makes reference to ‘necessity’. Social media has the power to influence social norms, as well as imparting knowledge to participants; be it through news feeds or YouTube videos. Therefore participation in social media can influence an individual’s acceptance amongst their peers. This does not wholly constitute necessity; however it is can be said, at the extreme, that it is necessary to engage in social media to stay socially relevant.
Considering this, can we say that social media and our online existences contribute to shaping the world around us? Similar to other philosophers within the field of epistemology, Nietzsche strives for ‘truth’ in any given proposition. We acquire knowledge through sensation, our outer senses, and subsequently use our inner senses to rationalise the knowledge we obtain. However this knowledge is wholly arbitrary. Through reading, for example, a status on Facebook we rely upon our certitudes to attribute a truth value to the information that we have obtained, but that does not make the information absolute, there is no verifiable means via which we can prove this empirically. That said, this does not mean our subsequent offline social interaction will not be altered from our online interaction. Each individual who reads the given status will perceive it phenomenologically different to one another. Their perception and interaction with the individual who posted the status may or may not be altered by their own subjective perception of the status.
We can ascertain from this that social media does therefore have real world effects and consequences. Owing to our own personal certitudes, the premise, outlined by John Henry Newman, that ‘none of us think or act without accepting some truths’ (Kenny 2007: 149), we can speculate that, although the information imparted to us from social media is empirically unverifiable, if we attribute it with a degree of truth it is contributory to shaping the world around us and our perception of it.
Niezschean philosophy, although comprised of uncertainty and scepticism, may have embraced the digital age of social media. ‘The sea, our sea, again lies open before us, perhaps never before did such an open sea exist’ (Nietzsche 1883 In: Bramann 1998). As a paradigm of social media; user generated content allows for individualism and although regulating social norms to a degree, allows for opinion and individual values to be shared.
Bibliography
Bramann, J.K. (1998) Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Available from: http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/Zarathustra.htm. [Accessed: 26/1/2012].
Kenny, A. (2007) Philosophy in the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.. Pp 144-168.
Nietzsche, F. (1873) On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. Available from: http://faculty.uml.edu/enelson/truth&lies.htm. [Accessed: 27/1/2012].
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