Facebook and Video-Games: Who are we anyways?

Media today is being more and more integrated into our everyday lives. Growing at an exponential rate, we now see ourselves virtually (no pun intended) merging our behaviors, habits, and thoughts to coincide with the use of new media technology. Two very different forms of media reminded me of a type of "post-colonial media theory" in which humans disappear into oblivion with the help of new media.

1. Facebook: I'm sure we're all sick and tired of hearing and analyzing facebook, but it is often intriguing to think about this medium on a critical level. We build a profile via facebook, we post pictures, we write comments, we add videos. This, certainly, is the opposite of the "disappearing flesh" claim. However, what is almost more integral, more frequently used, in facebook are the "delete" features, the distinct "privacy" discourse, and the ever popular "detag." If I'm in a picture with someone I don't like, I detag myself. No, I still may have met this new frenemy in the first place, but with no virtual record, no one has to know. We discuss certain items in public, via the "wall" and in private, via "messenger." There's almost a code to this, a discourse, "why would she post that? At least message it, but don't post it for everyone to see." But who is everyone? Is everyone really all of our friends and family, or is it simply the big-brotheresque eye of the media, the "wall" knows what was posted, and the "wall" may be what we fear. We can delete ourselves, edit ourselves down, until we are not flesh and blood people with flaws and arguments, but aimiable, agreeable, popular people whose left side of the face you'll never see (after all, I only keep tagged photos of my good side). 

2. Real-Time Multiplayer Video Games: Halo, Starcraft, World of Warcraft. Some I've only read about, some I've attempted, but either way, I can not find a more literal sense of one's reality, actions, thoughts, and idea merging with machine. In short, these games only allow for a handful of features (even if it's quite an impressive handful). You move, you run, you shoot, you hide, you jump. I cannot converse, I cannot bite my nails, take a nap, eat a sandwich. "It's just a game" my friends often tell me. But, during play, I rarely see my friends biting their nails, wanting to sleep, or eating. In real-time with multi-player features, their lives are virtually aligned with the screen, just like their opponents. They can talk to one another (limitedly), they can trade (fantasy items), they develop characters, identities, preferences, habits, and yet remain all in the limiting confines of the video-game code. 

Perhaps these criticisms show that our "post-colonial media theories" of a new cyber world are not far off base whatsoever, and perhaps we can then reevaluate our own selves and regain control over the new media that surrounds us.