What have we learned about blogging, Facebook, and Cambridge Analytica

Hi! My name is Beth, and the internet came into my household when I was 12. The sound of the dial up slowly trying to connect with its series of beeps and bops is one I remember fondly. I don’t really remember using the internet for anything other than msn chat, clunky pre-cell phone messaging my friends and I used mostly because we thought it was funny to spend our computer classes messaging each other behind the teachers back. Until I was in my late teens I didn’t used computers for much of anything beyond email. At that point I began to use it to make travel plans and research things, typical surfing the net stuff, facebook etc.. I got my first laptop five years ago and began to use the internet in the way that I imagine most people do, for entertainment, for banking (I always did telephone prior to having my own computer), for shopping, and for so many other useless, time consuming things. I think when you are using a public computer, or someone elses, it limits how you might explore the internet. Like I wasn’t going to spend hours shopping online at the library, or at a friends house on their computer (unless they weren’t there). I definitely noticed that my internet use spiked when I was somewhat depressed, or procrastinating, and I noticed my attention span growing significantly shorter. After about two years of this I decided to go internet-free in my home, which comes with its own host of annoyances, as well as insanely large phone bills. But I like that my home is a space where I don’t have that instant and mindless entertainment that can suck so many hours out of a day.


My undergraduate training has taken place over the course of the last six years primarily at the University of Winnipeg, with brief stints at other institutions. I am working on finishing a self guided honours degree that combines courses from the English, Art History, and Rhetoric departments. My academic focus lies in the broad and complex problems of popular and "high" culture, the relationship between technology and creativity, traditional methods of criticism, and experimental modes of cultural production. As forms of social interaction and cultural production proliferate online the ways in which we define ourselves and are perceived by others is being transformed, a fact made increasingly visible in art and pop culture. My degree has enabled me to trace the contours and consequences of digital immersion on the individual and cultural production in our late capitalist society. I am very excited to be having conversations with Jaqueline, Claire, and Fiona about the internet!