Alan Jacobs has a fascinating post on the future of memoir in a Facebook age at his blog, Text Patterns. Reflecting on his teaching of the memoirs of Augustine, Richard Rodriguez, and Marjane Satrapi’s, he writes:
All three of these authors are, in their varying ways, displaced persons — displaced from homeland, or upbringing, or culture, or language, or some combination thereof — and that displacement is one of the major prompts for memoir and other forms of self-narration. The person taken out of the environment in which he or she was formed is almost forced to reconsider the self and its components, is almost forced into redefinition. And one of the classic ways to achieve a successful redefinition is by telling one’s own story, in large part because through telling it one discovers what it is.
Alan’s explanation of the power in memoir is succinct and deeply true. It is for primarily for this reason that I keep coming back to memoir as a genre in my own free reading, attempting to find certain self-narrations that help me make sense of my own life, goals and desires. On my night stand right now is Christian Wiman’s Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet, a book of which I hope to write more on in a later post.
Jacobs continues on in this post to reflect on the future of memoir for people from the Facebook generation, questioning:
Does Facebook make self-narration less compelling, less necessary? In a much talked-about essay, Peggy Orenstein has speculated that Facebook denies to young people “an opportunity for insight, for growth through loneliness”; it makes it harder for them “to establish distance from their former selves, to clear space for introspection and transformation.” Maybe it also eases — or hides from us — our displacements, and creates a false sense of seamlessness in lives that have actually undergone significant ruptures
While Jacobs’ outlines a fascinating theory here, I don’t know if I completely buy it. To help flesh out some thoughts, I went back to Orenstein’s original article in the Times. In this piece, she writes of her concern that her necies will not have the space for necessary self-development in their upcoming journeys to college; specifically, she questions whether they will be able to explore and redefine their adult identities with “450 closest friends watching, all tweeting to affirm ad nauseam (their) present self?” Point taken, and it especially resonates with me given my tendency towards fulfilling the identity expectations that others have for me.
Orenstein goes onto argue that, “something is drowned in that virtual coffee cup — an opportunity for insight, for growth through loneliness.” In essence, Facebook circumvents loneliness and introspection for the individual. It is here where I think Orenstein and Jacobs misdiagnoses the role of Facebook on youth psychology. Loneliness is not removed in Facebook; if anything, it is amplified. Nothing makes one feel more alone than seeing a constant stream of self-selected photos from another person’s life, the parties they attend, and the new friends they are making. Nothing makes one pain of disintegrating high school friendships more acute as being a distant (but seemingly present) observer of their transformations. Though Facebook as a communication medium provides space for connection, as a voyeuristic space, it is more likely to cultivate existential isolation.
So, if as Orenstein seems to argue, Facebook make life into a “virtual coffee shop,” it is closer to the coffee shops I experience on a day-to-day basis than any sort of social ideal. We do not walk into Starbucks and see good friends at every table. Rather, we see familiar but nameless faces, and are known only by the snapshots they have of what we do in that place. In overhearing snippets of conversations between friends we do not know, we are surrounded by people but profoundly alone. If that does not cultivate a breeding ground for self-reflection and self-narration, I do not know what will.
Apr. 25, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I have experienced this to be so. Last year, my husband had a fellowhip at the State Department. We lived 2 miles from the State Department and I walked him to work everyday, passing many faces, some that came to be familiar, but still unknown.
As the apartment building was filled with young professionals, I would go back to a virtually empty building to do my exercise alone. Many times I would walk to meet my husband for a picnic lunch or to a “talk” at one of the many think tanks or professional associations. I learned, I grew, I was challenged, I was anxeious, I was expanded and enlarged. I cannot tell you how much the experience did in my life, as to my interests, and my “self”.
I do not think that anything per se makes it a more beneficial climate for “learning of this kind”, as one must also be open to learn. And that has nothing to do with location. One can change locations, or be isolated and still have it not bring benefit.
Apr. 26, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Hey Angie
Thanks for the comment. I think you are right on the profound impact of these types of experience. I found my first year or so in grad school, new to st louis, to have a similar impact.
I agree with your point that this does not automatically make for a ‘good’ learning environment. It hinges on how we engage this space (open to learning, etc). In a real sense, this is a bit of the point of Jacobs and Orenstein… the facebook interface may prevent people from feeling this isolation… preventing this growth, but I am just not sure I find this to not be the case, and perhaps that it is even a bit of the opposite.
pb