Consent and Zooming/Zoomers–11/05/2023
In reading Hayles’ and Rivers’ pieces for this week, I am reminded of how different our experiences of attention are post-COVID-19, and the way that consent factors into this. When Rivers writes about, as he calls it, the “moment of capture,” he is writing before a time when all of our attention was simultaneously captured by a worldwide pandemic that isolated us from our routines, communities, etc., and up for grabs in an entirely new way. He states that “To have your attention stolen is to have your self stolen as well” and recognizes that “…peace and quiet gets more expensive every year,” particularly as those in certain economic positions can only opt out of so much advertising (57, 58). I was at the end of undergrad in March 2020, and had the experience of many other undergraduate students in which I was expected to let professors and classmates into, essentially, my home, my place of peace and quiet. The collective and public elements of the classroom were removed, also affecting the concept of consent as a “collective phenomena” (58). Where the expense factored in in this case is that peace and quiet is rare in a home with multiple roommates or family members, something more likely experienced by those in a harder economic place. Participation was measured by being willing to keep your camera and microphone on, letting people into what may be considered “private.” Hayles calls what is essentially my generation “Generation M” for “Media”–we are often referred to as “Gen Z,” and I like this label, as long the Z stands for “Zoom.” [267] [JU-13]
[Hayles, 2007] [Rivers, 2020]
