As a form of documentation for our Facebookaholics Anonymous meeting we used photography and sound. This was made clear to participant through the disclaimer that these were all for Facebookaholics research only. The following are photographs from the event:
Category Archives: Events
Facebookaholics Anonymous Publicity
Our publicity for our Facebookaholics Anonymous meeting came from discussion and appropriation of text taken from the Alcoholics Anonymous site. Doubled with our How much do you like your profile? logo. The a3 poster read:
If you seem to be having trouble with your social identity, or if your social networking has reached the point of where it worries you? You may be interested to know something about Facebookaholics Anonymous and the FA programme of recovery from Facebook addiction. After reading this brief outline you may decide that FA has nothing to offer you.
Does your online identity reflect the real you? Do you feel the need to filter your timeline constantly? Are you addicted to creating your online identity? How much time do you invest in social networking?
Determine for yourself whether or not social networking has truly become a problem for you and remember that you will always be most welcome to join the thousands of men and women in FA who have put their obsessive problems behind them.
Please come to FA through many different means… choose the path that best suits you, remember there are no fees or dues.
If you prefer e-mail as a means of contact then feel free to email us at fa.help.plymouth@mail.com. We have a team of volunteers who have experiences the problems that loosing control of your addiction can bring. They are only too pleased to be willing to help.
If you prefer, you can simply turn up at one of our meetings, we strongly suggest that when you arrive you let someone know that this is your first meeting, that way they will be able to provide you with the information that most people new to FA find useful.
Next Plymouth meeting:
Wednesday 27th November @ 2.30-3.30pm
Plymouth College of Art Cafe
Publicity Document for Facebookaholics Anonymous meeting, 2013
Ontop of placing these around Studio 11 and the College, we also contacted the SU, and sent this round to all students within the college. Upon dispatching the flyers, I spoke to the man in the SU about our project when asking him if he could publicise the meeting throughout the college. He really enjoyed the concept behind our practice and was happy to help promote our meeting. However this would have benefited by being done with more time.
Facebookaholics Anonymous Meeting Script/Plan
Plan – Facebookaholics Anonymous
Intro
* Thank members for attending
* Introductions and how often they use Facebook
* Explain purpose of the group and the intentions – read the leaflet out
* Talk about confidentiality and honesty/respect
* Disclaimers – all must sign
* Brief intro to concept of fb identity and social identity construction
Group discussions
* Does your Facebook profile really represent you, if yes in what ways?
* Have you ever lied or exaggerated the truth on Facebook, if so why and what
* How often do you post something fairly mundane/boring on your own or someones elses timeline, why?
* Why do we feel annoyed about people posting mundane/boring things on their profiles, should we feel annoyed?
* Would you be happy if there was no way to untag or remove things from your timeline?
* Would you be happy if everything you did in a day was posted on your timeline as a status and why?
* How selective are you with your profile pictures/photos you are tagged in, and why?
BREAK
Split into pairs and hand out paper and pens
Pair discussions
* Why would you try and alter your identity for Facebook?
* How is your online identity different from the real life you and how? (photos, statuses, fitting in with social groups, music, films, ‘likes’ – selection and choice)
* How often do you write how you really feel in a status?
* Are you happy with how you come across in our Facebook profile?
* Have you ever posted something or changed your profile picture, then removed it because no one ‘liked’ it? And why?
* If you had to make your Facebook identity more representative of your real life identity, what would you change?
* Who are you trying to impress/ fit in with through the construction of your Facebook identity?
Feedback on pair discussions – Any issues raised etc
Confession Time
* Is there anything you would like to share with the group, anything you feel embarrassed about your profile… something you’ve done, or not done, hidden, posted, stalked, lied etc
* Thank group for sharing
* Any feedback
* Any thoughts provoked from the session
Facebookaholics Public Survey Documentation
We used photography to document our Public Surveys, we felt it important to make it appear that the public weren’t being photographed so it would not change their behaviour or the opinions the public were sharing anonymously.
The following photographs were taken outside Drake Circus, before we were asked to move by Drake Circus Security Guards, who claimed it to be a ‘no survey zone’.
After being asked to move we re-located to Plymouth town center it was here that we were able to gather more results:
Public Survey Review
What worked well
– Representing the brand Fa through uniform and logo
– Set out of survey – selected questions
– Time and location, after school hours not too late, center of town
– Confidence – performing in roles, helped having both of us
– Form of documentation, photography was subtle to public
What didn’t work as well
– Lighting for photography, dusk due to time and season make photographs unclear, especially as it was subtle – long distance shots
– After various rejections, subconsciously prejudging peoples willingness to participate, resulting in bias results.
– Could have done this performance survey in multiple locations to collect varied results.
Additional comments
– Security guard moved us after 10 minutes outside drake circus as it was a no survey area, didn’t ask to see ID.
– Interesting patterns watching people avoid walking near us.
– People lying about their use of Facebook to avoid answering questions on our survey when approached.
– Interesting to see publics engagements with our uniforms and badges as we walked through town to location.
– Public’s assumptions that we were from Facebook, no one asked us whatorganisationn we were with.
Facebookaholics Anonymous Disclaimer
Due to the nature of our research being research based we decided to produce a disclaimer for participants to sign, making sure we were clear what we would do with our documentation of the event. Leaving space for subjects to print their name and sign. We felt it important to include the banner logo to show consistency of the project from publicity to event. The disclaimer read:
‘The following meeting may be documented through Sound and Photography, for the purposes of the project; no information will be shared within the Public Realm. This Documentation is therefore the property of Esther Yates and Jemima Williams. Please sign to agree your consent to this disclaimer/ terms and conditions.’
Facebookaholics Anonymous Disclaimer, 2013
Facebookaholics Anonymous – Review
What worked well?
* Group dynamics – members of the group were very vocal, small group allowed for this
* Organisation and structure – well planned out, script worked well for structure and steering conversations
* Performance – ‘looked the part’, confident, got into the role
* Documentation – balance of sound/photography and short film clips
* Paperwork – Disclaimers, confidentiality and note taking
What didn’t work?
* Too personal and vocal – myself and Jem were too vocal in the discussions which perhaps caused bias in the conversations
* Sound recording – more planning needed and practice run, some sound didn’t record due to rushed setup
* Location – too noisy, too internal – in college… could have been more effective in a more public setting
* Publicity – more publicity across public rather than within PCA, time management of publicity could have been more effective done earlier – though small group worked well
* Professional – could have been more professional in the role, we were more relaxed and informal because we knew everyone who attended
Other comments…
* Achieved a level of awareness through discussions – members more aware of the construction of their identity
* Good feedback from group – members were interested and vocal – perhaps potential to do again?
* Achieved most of what we set out to do, to hold a small event based on the ideas of Alcoholics Anonymous and to raise the awareness and get people thinking about the ideas of social identity construction
* Lost half of sound recording due to poor planning and human error
* Worked well having colleague recording sound and photography
Artist As Curator 