Paper Example on Paranoia and Network Collectivity

Introduction

With the technological development, it is sometimes difficult not to operate with the feeling that the internet is watching us. Funny and Uncanny adverts that normally make an appearance on websites or on our social media feeds is a serious reminder that something or rather someone is attentive in our most serious browsing. Technically, after serious revelations about Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) surveillance and National Security Agency (NSA), any paranoia that an individual might face is a clear sign of a parameterized situation that it's for sure that they are watching on some of the things that we are doing (Georgieva,2015). With the current development, it's always clear that the Mann's original motivation was to ensure exploration of various alternatives surveillance. He pictured the contestation that is existing between the under the sight of community and the oversight of the institution; a serious struggle between social formation built through a mediated vector that pertains to a vector of watching.

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Culture is a valuable aspect of communities and societies. Culture refers to beliefs, values, criterions, rules, and policies that people use to define and understand their own space. Notably, culture gets influenced during the time children are born and as they continuously grow. Therefore, it is important to know that culture is a changing phenomenon which can be impacted by the changing environment, society and human behavior (Allen, Damaraju, Wu,& Calhoun,2018). The concept of Paranoia in the culture is difficult to tackle as it incorporates socially-related beliefs which get altered as changes occur in the society especially during this error of media culture. The sprouting of the internet and social media has caused some radical changes in the society as well as instigating paranoia to another level. Therefore, the paper aims at discussing the concept of paranoia and how it relates to the current media culture and the loss of symbolic order and how digital platforms of the world-making can be of help in covering the gap of the loss. Furthermore, focusses on discussing how the standardization of protocols and programs counters the fragmentation of collectivity, working upon our collective attention below our symbolic capacities, and investigating the role of new attentional forms in the constitution of data and networked publics. Moreover, the piece discusses how some critics of today's network culture move beyond symbolically defined collectivity altogether, and towards a thinking of networks as elemental and heterogenous preconditions for human collectivity to emerge

Delusion involving technology, and particularly the internet is has become one of the common challenges in the current century. It is also important to note that according to Rimpilainen, Morrison & Rooney,(2018), fear reality statistics is a good suggestion that the computer-related fears are very widespread. Some of such fears are part and parcel of a continuum from the greatly spread realistic to the unrealistic and understandably paranoid. For example in the health setup, great development of technology has produced various reports of its incorporation into delusional thinking and clinical paranoia. Other social science commenters have also developed greater suggestions on serious fear in regards to cybercrime and modern technology within the existing population. As reported by Waytz, & Gray (2018), such computer anxiety is termed and the greater suggestion is raised that this can have a greater impact on cyber technology.

With the general network connectivity, much focus has been made on assessing cyber-related attitudes, feelings, behaviors, and beliefs that results specifically from fear, paranoia, and distrust. Through cyber paranoia, some of the end results are some of the unrealistic fears that are concerning threats via information technologies whereby various individuals are perceiving themselves to be opened to be either persecuted, victimized or even attacked in one way or the other. However, the boundaries of the existing realistic fear are increasingly blurred with an accurate view on risk which is only possessed by those that are existing in information technology security.

Fear scale and cyber paranoia in line with the greatly accepted trait build a general paranoia and a range of indices of digital inclusion and literacy. What is not advancing is that cyber paranoia has totally a very different psychology to trait paranoia or wholly different etiology. As a result of networking and various systems that have serious integration, it is important to note that parasocial nature of cyberspace, fear of networking, and the computer is specific has resulted into great paranoia in the general population.

The Concept of Paranoia

Paranoia is a mental health disorder which is mainly facilitated by fear and anxiety. Often, the victims are surrounded by thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that they are being targeted for attacks which lead to mistrust among people. In addition, the people are often filled with illusions, fantasies, and annoyance which may create false accusations in many situations. For instance, a person may feel excluded and get irritated contrary to the truth. The symbolic order is closely related to culture in that it is a representation of the real events. The main symbolic tool is the language which gets exposed to the child and in return, they learn to differentiate themselves from other individuals. Lacan defines symbolic order as a necessity of difference and realization of difference. Thus, when there is a culture change, people develop fears surrounding their beliefs and an anticipated symbolic order loss.

Currently, the paranoia thoughts are more common as compared to the previous generation merely due to the advance in media culture. The current technologies of communication have revolutionized the culture and beliefs impacting some individuals to adopt new behavior both positive and negative. The media culture such as CCTV cameras, public security notifications, and other digital platforms depict a worrying situation which brings about suspicions in people. Paranoia interferes with the normal functioning of the brain distracting individuals from functioning normally and achieving their goals. According to Greene (2001), it is close to the impossibility to live and enjoy life without trust as it is like being held in lifelong prison.

The current media culture provides a channel where symbols, new ideas, and new identities are generated. The impact is highly witnessed among the youth who tend to follow the trend even when it is misleading. Apparently, the media content could be fictional nevertheless, some people may take it to be true and they end up getting stressed over what they have never been able to achieve. Thus, they get paranoid and start acting under the influence of their fears portraying aggressive behavior. Media culture especially social media has changed the culture in how people communicate (Castells,2011). For instance, most of the people focus more on getting more likes, comments and emulating the lifestyle portrayed from the media imagery. As a result, people will take drastic measure even if it entails going against their beliefs to satisfy what the public views as good. Moreover, when people fail to acquire the current social media status, they get paranoid and depressed to the extent of hating everyone and everything around them.

Presently, the childhood generation has developed a culture where everything is conducted via the internet, mobile phones and social media. Activities like friendship interaction, dating and meetings are done online through media platforms shaping their new form of language. This can be attributed to the fact that most parents were willing to ways that can incorporate indoor activities for their children as a way of ensuring security. Nonetheless, the culture contributes to virtual reality where most of the upcoming generation live in a fantasy world and cannot cope with the real world. Thus, a loss in symbolic order is achieved in that the way of handling things has been modified to fit the current media culture (Halavais,2013). Moreover, when the individuals discover they are living a different reality, the paranoia takes over and a generation of anxious, sad and aggressive children if formed.

Standardization of Protocols and Programs Counters the Fragmentation of Collectivity

According to the past reports on the good old fashioned artificial intelligence which was based on symbolic information processing, much has been superseded in the past years due to neural networks (Halavais,2013). With the technological advancement, these networks have worked with modifiable parameters when it comes to achieving the end results. Basically, this is a significant aspect in managing the general artificial intelligence since it refers to some of the modeling challenges. It is important to note that neural network just functions like human beings since they do learn from the environment that is around them. Therefore, one who understands the nature of the modeled world as a specific set of data has a better understanding that everything that is flowing into the dataset has a greater influence on the development process of the respective algorithm.

From the impact of machine learning which is identified as "overfitting", it is very clear that network that tries to gain the understanding of the world around them, normally over affirm the data with which they are trained. This point of view demonstrates that data is never neutral, implying that the learning algorithms are fed with algorithms that reflect our own assumptions and prejudices hence it may end up becoming a no surprise when artificial neural networks start to discriminate based on age, gender sexual orientation and class in general(Jameson,1988).

Paranoia and Network Collectivity

In the current world where technology is changing how everything should operate, the contemporary public sphere is fragmented into partial, operating with the collapse of "symbolic efficiency" and working with publicity. With new technological advancement, various strategies have emerged so as to counter and come into right terms with a rethinking of collective imaginaries both in cultural, theory practices and fragmentation in general. Besides, the paper will also raise discussion on how the standardization of programs and protocols counters the fragmentation of collectivity investigating the role of new attentional forms in the constitution of data and network public and working upon our collective attentional forms below our symbolic capacities(Laumann & Pappi, 2013). Additionally, some of the critics of the current 's network culture move beyond symbolically defined collectively, towards a thinking of networks as heterogeneous and elemental preconditions of human collectively to emerge.

Network Culture

In postmodernism, being was left in a fabric of emotional intensities that is freely floating, with the existence in the contemporary culture being affirmed through the network. Generally, not all at once but what transpires is that it fits and it's now the beginning of a new societal condition is emerging with a network culture. It is important to note that as digital computing is advancing with increasing measures, society is also changing with networking technology undergoing a cultural shift. Just as postmodernism and modernism served as a significant heuristic device in the past, understanding of network culture as a historical phenomenon creates a good understanding on greater sociocultural structures and trends to manage our own historical time.

In our existence, the network has turned out as one of the d...