When Jean-Francois Lyotard talked about Postmodernism he said "it is stripped of its humanistic and spiritual associations, its connection with education, teaching and human development, being simply rendered as 'data.'" Years later, this Postmodern "data" is all over the internet, consuming hours and hours of people's lives. The web as we know it today is a very postmodern place for everyone in the world to hang out. Anyone with any information is accepted on the web, much as they were in a Postmodern society when it first begun.
Postmodernism is a topic in this class because digital media today is something that people often hide behind in their life. The use of social media makes human connection obsolete because the user can hide behind a persona they create. The information they are posting cannot be guaranteed as accurate and is rarely relevant to bigger issues in the world. People consume themselves with reading and updating Facebook and Twitter. These applications don't have a humanistic quality and connection to them. You can have full conversations and get to know someone without ever really meeting them. The thought of perhaps having a best friend or boyfriend in the digital world that you've never met could fall under the thoughts behind postmodernism.
Social media also gives users an alternate way to get world news and thoughts then the standard newspaper or broadcast. Just by someone's personal update on Twitter, thousands of people could know the news that the person is experiencing. Social media, like postmodernism, gives people an alternate way of life, which right now is very popular.
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