What did I learn?
From the introduction class what seemed to stick with me the most, is the fact that even a howl of a wolf can interconnect with how a river forms. I have been familiar with the term “ecosystems” for many years, but in class it struck me that everything is interconnected, even unconsciously, and therefore somehow an ecosystem.
How did it make me feel?
First and foremost that made me feel small and that i am part of a constant cycle. But also it made me feel that there are things in my surroundings that I can’t nor should try to control.
How can I use this in my life?
Studying anthropology, the ability to alienate myself from the context i am surrounded by in order to understand other human ways of living, experiencing and thinking is crucial. But after class it struck me that taking other “non-human” ecosystems into consideration as an agent themselves, such as the wolf or the river, also interconnect and co-creates human experiences. It seems banal maybe, especially since many first year anthropology students go through the theories of Bruno Latour and his actor-network theory, which is exactly about understanding the network of interconnecting relationships between human and non-human agents. But nonetheless I have never given much thought to this in a neuropsychological perspective. That is how the ecosystems in out society and nature actually wire and rewire our brains.
What do I wan’t to ask?
So taking into consideration that this class has “social media” in the course title, I am really curious about how one can explore the relationship between human and social media as a symbiotic/co-creation of everyday life. What kind of “taken for granted”/internalized thinking patterns and behaviour relates to social media, and does the digital then have agency on it’s own?