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The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media
The Breakup 2.0 is intriguing and illuminating. By exploring how college students use Facebook, cell phones, and IM, Gershon deepens our understanding of these media, of young people's lives, and of our evolving definitions of public and private. It's an original and enlightening book. ― Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University, author of You Just Don't Understand and You Were Always Mom's Favorite! A few generations ago, college students showed their romantic commitments by exchanging special rings, pins, varsity letter jackets. Pins and rings were handy, telling everyone in local communities that you were spoken for, and when you broke up, the absence of a ring let everyone know you were available again. Is being Facebook official really more complicated, or are status updates just a new version of these old tokens? Many people are now fascinated by how new media has affected the intricacies of relationships and their dissolution. People often talk about Facebook and Twitter as platforms that have led to a seismic shift in transparency and (over)sharing. What are the new rules for breaking up? These rules are argued over and mocked in venues from the New York Times to lamebook.com, but well-thought-out and informed considerations of the topic are rare. Ilana Gershon was intrigued by the degree to which her students used new media to communicate important romantic information—such as "it's over." She decided to get to the bottom of the matter by interviewing seventy-two people about how they use Skype, texting, voice mail, instant messaging, Facebook, and cream stationery to end relationships. She opens up the world of romance as it is conducted in a digital milieu, offering insights into the ways in which different media influence behavior, beliefs, and social mores. Above all, this full-fledged ethnography of Facebook and other new tools is about technology and communication, but it also tells the reader a great deal about what college students expect from each other when breaking up—and from their friends who are the spectators or witnesses to the ebb and flow of their relationships. The Breakup 2.0 is accessible and riveting.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published July 2, 2010
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June 29, 2022
Nothing new here
January 8, 2022
I read this for a course, so the rating is to keep things neutral I suppose.
I actually wrote a bit of a journal during the reading, which I will reproduce below. There are 3 parts, which cover the 5 chapters of the book.
Ilana Gershon – The Breakup 2.0
PART I
The excerpt from Ilana Gershon’s book introduces and examines how we use digital technologies to communicate via our interactions in relationship breakups. Two important concepts come to mind, one is media ideology, or “people’s ideas about the [digital] medium [that] shape the ways that the medium will deliver a message” (3) and “idiom of practice”, or the ways in which a group of people may agree on how to use different media” via “advice and sharing stories” (6). One shapes the way people receive messages sent via different forms of social media, and the other define the way people send these messages in the first place. Gershon, via her extensive interviews for the book research, discovers that much of the frustration with breaking up via social media comes from differences in media ideologies in the medium of communication in question, as well as differences in idioms of practice. While generational differences might show an equivocation of of letters and emails in younger communicators (compared to emails being associated with informality in older demographics), there are myriad reasons for these ideology differences, as people participate in these different means of communication which are themselves changing rapidly. For example, the current form of Instagram, as of this writing, includes Story, Reels, and Highlight features that were nonexistent at the time of the publication of the book. This is further complicated by the idioms of practice formed in the subgroups each person belong to, as well as the multitudes of communication platforms such as texting, voice messaging, Snapchat, Instagram, Telegram, Whatsapp, Discord, Youtube, Facebook, Zoom etc. that inform each other’s ideologies as each person chooses to participate in their own permutation of media. Daniel Miller’s “horizontal synchronous perspective” in this new age of polymedia usage comes to mind.
Gershon also noticed in Chapter 1 that this frustration with the breakup (medium) might be an American bias, however it is easy to notice that here in South East Asia there are also Facebook groups that clearly highlighted similar sentiments. As Facebook and Instagram and many of our wonderful digital technologies originate from American startups, a more pertinent question to ask may be that to what extent have the ethnoscapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes from these regions filtered into other cultures globally.
PART II
Continuing on to chapters 2 and 3, Gershon discusses at length what the structure of a communicative social media entails, as well as the relationship between one social media to other media—building on the observation that nobody actually utilizes solely one communication technology in reality. For the structure of a medium, it is important to not only pay attention to the content of the messages being exchanged, but also the “second-order” information that, embedded within the technology, also comes with the message. I can think of the “Seen” feature in messaging and Facebook messaging—a novelty that was not available on Facebook at the time of the writing of the book, which lets senders know whether the message have been read by the receiver. What is particularly interesting is how the “Seen” feature can be interpreted in many different ways, depending on various media ideologies—for some “Seen” messages must be replied to, otherwise it is considered rude, and these people would deliberately avoid logging on the chat/ clicking on the conversation with the senders to avoid showing the “Seen” feature; for others merely “Seen” messages indicate care and attentiveness, and for some “Seen” messages without extended reply can be a display of passive-aggression. Gershon quoted Heidegger on technology “As you use the tool more and more it comes to feel like a simple extension of yourself”, hinting towards the idea of the symbiosis between a person and their media technologies, much in the way Facebook relationship statuses, a category of their own in many ways, have become part of how we form relationships (real-life or virtual), and perceive one another. This is further complicated by Botler and Gursin’s “remediation”, how personal media ideologies for one technology will be based on older media and technologies. However, Gershon deviates from the emphasis on the idea of media as representation of real-life sensory experiences, referring to ‘immediacy’ which is the ‘impression of mediating reality as little as possible and ‘hypermedia’, or the duplication of the way people experience reality. This also reminds of Boellstorff’s ontological turn—that there is no actual divide between reality and digital, and therefore it is false to judge a medium on how well it represents reality: some mediums are capable of generating their own realities with their own sets of stimuli. Even for the case of the often-used Facebook, it is uncertain that there is a clear divide between the digital and the real: Facebook is manifesting its own reality with its “fake” accounts and joke relationships—not to mention the recent moves with Meta—and as such do not only represent real-life connections.
PART III
The last chapters of the book shift the attention from the media to the people using media, zooming in the idea of “second order information”, or “not what is actually said but rather the background knowledge of a situation and expectation of communication that allows one to interpret the words”, and the way there are new conceptions of publics that centered around the mediums that people participate in. Facebook itself is a big facilitator for a proliferation of second-order information, turning “Facebook stalking” a phenomenon, due to the powerful anonymity that it allows for compared to real-life stalking. This is however also indication of how users of a medium will always find ways to use the medium not accounted for by the creators of the medium, for example “fake profiles” that protect the anonymity of the Facebook stalker even further, or the sharing of passwords of a fake Facebook profile among a common pool of people the to make said profile less detectable. The “second order” also manifests in acts such as defriending of an ex on social media that is interpreted as “hurtful”, while in comparison due to the lack of the actual publicity and a space for people to actually see the defriending, deleting phone numbers of exes by contrast alleviates the stress because it reduces personal access of the person from their exes. As such, second-order information can, depending on the media ideology, encode the sender intentions, encode the context of the messages, and encode what the sender knows”.
Meanwhile, thanks to the customizable audience that these social media sites have, there is an expansion of the idea of a public—that every public announcement is no longer about speaking to a crowd of strangers, but rather to smaller subgroups of people connected to the announcer with varying degrees of access. This transference from anonymity to accessibility brings nuance to social media usage, for example in certain cases where the public message delivered is accessed by two different subgroups, there is potential for social dilemmas experienced by social media user sharing the message, as the two groups may have distinct media ideologies which are triggered by different second-order information.
All in all, “The Breakup 2.0”, while merely looking at the innocent issue of breaking up via social media, is a thought-provoking representation of how the reality we now share is constantly being molded in digital form in addition to physical form—while the true “break-up” of a relationship occurs in real time and physical space, social media breakups invite questions of understanding social media, understanding attitudes and expectations on the uses of social media as an extension of physical reality.
I actually wrote a bit of a journal during the reading, which I will reproduce below. There are 3 parts, which cover the 5 chapters of the book.
Ilana Gershon – The Breakup 2.0
PART I
The excerpt from Ilana Gershon’s book introduces and examines how we use digital technologies to communicate via our interactions in relationship breakups. Two important concepts come to mind, one is media ideology, or “people’s ideas about the [digital] medium [that] shape the ways that the medium will deliver a message” (3) and “idiom of practice”, or the ways in which a group of people may agree on how to use different media” via “advice and sharing stories” (6). One shapes the way people receive messages sent via different forms of social media, and the other define the way people send these messages in the first place. Gershon, via her extensive interviews for the book research, discovers that much of the frustration with breaking up via social media comes from differences in media ideologies in the medium of communication in question, as well as differences in idioms of practice. While generational differences might show an equivocation of of letters and emails in younger communicators (compared to emails being associated with informality in older demographics), there are myriad reasons for these ideology differences, as people participate in these different means of communication which are themselves changing rapidly. For example, the current form of Instagram, as of this writing, includes Story, Reels, and Highlight features that were nonexistent at the time of the publication of the book. This is further complicated by the idioms of practice formed in the subgroups each person belong to, as well as the multitudes of communication platforms such as texting, voice messaging, Snapchat, Instagram, Telegram, Whatsapp, Discord, Youtube, Facebook, Zoom etc. that inform each other’s ideologies as each person chooses to participate in their own permutation of media. Daniel Miller’s “horizontal synchronous perspective” in this new age of polymedia usage comes to mind.
Gershon also noticed in Chapter 1 that this frustration with the breakup (medium) might be an American bias, however it is easy to notice that here in South East Asia there are also Facebook groups that clearly highlighted similar sentiments. As Facebook and Instagram and many of our wonderful digital technologies originate from American startups, a more pertinent question to ask may be that to what extent have the ethnoscapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes from these regions filtered into other cultures globally.
PART II
Continuing on to chapters 2 and 3, Gershon discusses at length what the structure of a communicative social media entails, as well as the relationship between one social media to other media—building on the observation that nobody actually utilizes solely one communication technology in reality. For the structure of a medium, it is important to not only pay attention to the content of the messages being exchanged, but also the “second-order” information that, embedded within the technology, also comes with the message. I can think of the “Seen” feature in messaging and Facebook messaging—a novelty that was not available on Facebook at the time of the writing of the book, which lets senders know whether the message have been read by the receiver. What is particularly interesting is how the “Seen” feature can be interpreted in many different ways, depending on various media ideologies—for some “Seen” messages must be replied to, otherwise it is considered rude, and these people would deliberately avoid logging on the chat/ clicking on the conversation with the senders to avoid showing the “Seen” feature; for others merely “Seen” messages indicate care and attentiveness, and for some “Seen” messages without extended reply can be a display of passive-aggression. Gershon quoted Heidegger on technology “As you use the tool more and more it comes to feel like a simple extension of yourself”, hinting towards the idea of the symbiosis between a person and their media technologies, much in the way Facebook relationship statuses, a category of their own in many ways, have become part of how we form relationships (real-life or virtual), and perceive one another. This is further complicated by Botler and Gursin’s “remediation”, how personal media ideologies for one technology will be based on older media and technologies. However, Gershon deviates from the emphasis on the idea of media as representation of real-life sensory experiences, referring to ‘immediacy’ which is the ‘impression of mediating reality as little as possible and ‘hypermedia’, or the duplication of the way people experience reality. This also reminds of Boellstorff’s ontological turn—that there is no actual divide between reality and digital, and therefore it is false to judge a medium on how well it represents reality: some mediums are capable of generating their own realities with their own sets of stimuli. Even for the case of the often-used Facebook, it is uncertain that there is a clear divide between the digital and the real: Facebook is manifesting its own reality with its “fake” accounts and joke relationships—not to mention the recent moves with Meta—and as such do not only represent real-life connections.
PART III
The last chapters of the book shift the attention from the media to the people using media, zooming in the idea of “second order information”, or “not what is actually said but rather the background knowledge of a situation and expectation of communication that allows one to interpret the words”, and the way there are new conceptions of publics that centered around the mediums that people participate in. Facebook itself is a big facilitator for a proliferation of second-order information, turning “Facebook stalking” a phenomenon, due to the powerful anonymity that it allows for compared to real-life stalking. This is however also indication of how users of a medium will always find ways to use the medium not accounted for by the creators of the medium, for example “fake profiles” that protect the anonymity of the Facebook stalker even further, or the sharing of passwords of a fake Facebook profile among a common pool of people the to make said profile less detectable. The “second order” also manifests in acts such as defriending of an ex on social media that is interpreted as “hurtful”, while in comparison due to the lack of the actual publicity and a space for people to actually see the defriending, deleting phone numbers of exes by contrast alleviates the stress because it reduces personal access of the person from their exes. As such, second-order information can, depending on the media ideology, encode the sender intentions, encode the context of the messages, and encode what the sender knows”.
Meanwhile, thanks to the customizable audience that these social media sites have, there is an expansion of the idea of a public—that every public announcement is no longer about speaking to a crowd of strangers, but rather to smaller subgroups of people connected to the announcer with varying degrees of access. This transference from anonymity to accessibility brings nuance to social media usage, for example in certain cases where the public message delivered is accessed by two different subgroups, there is potential for social dilemmas experienced by social media user sharing the message, as the two groups may have distinct media ideologies which are triggered by different second-order information.
All in all, “The Breakup 2.0”, while merely looking at the innocent issue of breaking up via social media, is a thought-provoking representation of how the reality we now share is constantly being molded in digital form in addition to physical form—while the true “break-up” of a relationship occurs in real time and physical space, social media breakups invite questions of understanding social media, understanding attitudes and expectations on the uses of social media as an extension of physical reality.
February 6, 2012
It's fascinating how profoundly social media is altering our society and how society is reacting to the new forms of interaction brought about by technological change. In Break Up 2.0, Ilana Gershon, a lecturer in the Department of Communication and culture at Indiana University, examines the use of new technological media in the context of relationship break ups. Whether it's breaking up via text message, a change of Facebook status or an email, Gershon explores dating in the digital age.
Despite only working with a small sample of students who volunteered to participate, Gershon uncovered a variety of ways in which her students both use and interpret newer forms of communication. She discovered, essentially, that the social rules and conventions around media are still evolving and there is not yet a unified view on what is and isn't appropriate in regards to interpersonal communication.
The vignettes from the students she interviews are an interesting window into the social negotiations taking place especially in regards to the increasingly public nature of relationships.
The issue with books that examine social media is that the landscape is changing so rapidly that by the time the book is published the relevance of its findings has to be considered. When this study took place in 2007-2008, Facebook was a social platform primarily the domain of American college students, it has become much more mainstream in 2012, and its usage has continued to evolve. However Break Up 2.0 still has relevance in today's negotiation of relationships through digital media and it is an interesting examination of popular culture. The conclusions tend to be repetitive though so the book begins to drag and the language is more academic than accessible. It is a University Press title so it's intended audience, I assume, is sociology students but it could have easily been something with wider appeal, with a slightly different tone.
Despite only working with a small sample of students who volunteered to participate, Gershon uncovered a variety of ways in which her students both use and interpret newer forms of communication. She discovered, essentially, that the social rules and conventions around media are still evolving and there is not yet a unified view on what is and isn't appropriate in regards to interpersonal communication.
The vignettes from the students she interviews are an interesting window into the social negotiations taking place especially in regards to the increasingly public nature of relationships.
The issue with books that examine social media is that the landscape is changing so rapidly that by the time the book is published the relevance of its findings has to be considered. When this study took place in 2007-2008, Facebook was a social platform primarily the domain of American college students, it has become much more mainstream in 2012, and its usage has continued to evolve. However Break Up 2.0 still has relevance in today's negotiation of relationships through digital media and it is an interesting examination of popular culture. The conclusions tend to be repetitive though so the book begins to drag and the language is more academic than accessible. It is a University Press title so it's intended audience, I assume, is sociology students but it could have easily been something with wider appeal, with a slightly different tone.
April 27, 2018
While this book was funny and entertaining, Gershon's conclusion limits the further exploration that the subject could provide if there were more hard and fast facts to look into. Gershon explores how social media has come to effect our lives and relationships and, in particular, our breakups. However, she simply concludes that so many new medias are changing so quickly that their impact cannot be determined because everyone uses the media in their own way. Simplified - how relationships are affected can't be summarized because this is just all too new and just too evolving and varying. However, she did bring out an important and interesting idea that there is no standardization in new media. There is no consensus in how it should be used, what is appropriate, or even how it is perceived. Thus, what method you use to break up through is defined on your feelings of the media. We then all interpret things differently as our own social analyst, so a break up over text may seem bad to one and okay to another. Despite the limitation of Gershon's book, she provides a fun sociological look at new age media that is still interesting and though provoking.
I discussed this book and more problems relating to digital culture here: http://pinatara326.blogspot.com/2012/...
I discussed this book and more problems relating to digital culture here: http://pinatara326.blogspot.com/2012/...
February 20, 2013
The author writes, "I am writing about the intersection between disconnection and the media people use to disconnect. I look at what people say about mediated breakups as a starting point for understanding how people think about and use different media" (p. 12). I will use this book in my "Living Life Online" class.
The author introduced me to two new concepts. 1) Second order information: "The background knowledge of a situation and expectations of communication that allows one to interpret the words. Second- order information accompanies the exact phrases in the message itself, and guides people in how to interpret others' actions and intentions" (p. 123).
And 2) Remediation: "people's ideas and uses of recently introduced media need to be analyzed alongside people's ideas and uses of older media" (p. 93).
These two concepts are very helpful when looking at how people communicate online.
The author introduced me to two new concepts. 1) Second order information: "The background knowledge of a situation and expectations of communication that allows one to interpret the words. Second- order information accompanies the exact phrases in the message itself, and guides people in how to interpret others' actions and intentions" (p. 123).
And 2) Remediation: "people's ideas and uses of recently introduced media need to be analyzed alongside people's ideas and uses of older media" (p. 93).
These two concepts are very helpful when looking at how people communicate online.
November 29, 2017
Many years ago, Zygmunt Bauman already wrote about this topic.
This book does little to advance on the topic other than give examples and do some story-telling.
I guess that, for people who complain Bauman books are “too abstract” and lack “real examples”, perhaps this would do as a good companion. Still, overall it does little in term of theoretical contribution, and its examples doesn’t do much in terms of providing with a better understanding of the phenomena Bauman already described. It actually comes as an oversimplification of his thesis. In conclusion, I’d say just look for Bauman’s work instead for a better analysis.
This book does little to advance on the topic other than give examples and do some story-telling.
I guess that, for people who complain Bauman books are “too abstract” and lack “real examples”, perhaps this would do as a good companion. Still, overall it does little in term of theoretical contribution, and its examples doesn’t do much in terms of providing with a better understanding of the phenomena Bauman already described. It actually comes as an oversimplification of his thesis. In conclusion, I’d say just look for Bauman’s work instead for a better analysis.
September 16, 2024
This book goes really deep into how we communicate. I learnt a lot from it. It answers why I don't like Facebook. It answers why my partner and I have never had any social media issues.
At times I felt like a voyeur into the lives of others breaking up.
This book is about communication using breaking up and romantic relationships as the medium. Although, I am sure some others would say it is the other way around.
At times I felt like a voyeur into the lives of others breaking up.
This book is about communication using breaking up and romantic relationships as the medium. Although, I am sure some others would say it is the other way around.
March 20, 2024
Book really peaked around the end of the first chapter but enjoyed its ideas presented around second order information, media ideologies and idioms of practice
November 19, 2024
4 stars
I had to read this book in a 48-hour time span for a course. I actually really enjoyed it, since I take interest in digital anthropology and how we all interpret the digital world (and our digital selves, by extension). I learned some nifty new terms like "media ideology", "remediation", and "idioms of practice". All of these will be added to my repertoire.
I enjoyed this book not just because it goes over breakups, but also because it discusses digital communication more generally. We all spend hours analyzing texts, comments, likes, and other forms of digital interaction that might as well be meaningless to the sender. The different mediums of digital communication (or the intersection between that and traditional means of communication) are seen as siloed in our minds. You can have two ongoing conversations with the same person on two different platforms, and solely due to the nature of how one views each platform, the conversations will likely be different. I would never send you a work reminder in your Instagram DMs, and I'd never send you memes through email. The formality and informality of various digital platforms is something dissected heavily in this book (but not too academically, which is actually one of my qualms), as well as the cross-generational interpretations of these platforms.
Something I wish this book did better was be less poppy and more academic. I understand that this wasn't the point of the book, but sometimes it just felt really gossipy for no reason. The author spent too much time discussing the details of her students' personal relationships and not enough time developing her ideas more. For a book I had to read for class, I just wish I could use more information from it. Also, the way she recounted the stories of her millennial students was just generally difficult to follow. Not much punctuation was used, and it seemed like she simply transcribed an audio recording of the conversation without actually looking to see if it made any sense to readers who don't know the collaborators personally.
While not a critique, it's important to note how dated this book already feels. The undergraduate college students in the book regularly use Facebook. This is something foreign to undergrads today. In fact, I'd be interested to see how the new social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok (or even Vine), Reddit, Twitter (now known as X), and Discord would fit into these discussions. It would be cool to see anthropological analyses of "soft-launching" one's partner on Instagram, or curating one's story on Instagram and Snapchat differently, or having different roles in different Discord servers. What are the differences in the nature of livestreams on each of these platforms? Why do people choose to use some and not the others?
Overall, I would definitely say this is an easy read. It's something which can be zoomed through, and I enjoyed most of it. I'm sure there are more academic things out there, and the author cites many great sources and scholars if that's something you're looking for.
I had to read this book in a 48-hour time span for a course. I actually really enjoyed it, since I take interest in digital anthropology and how we all interpret the digital world (and our digital selves, by extension). I learned some nifty new terms like "media ideology", "remediation", and "idioms of practice". All of these will be added to my repertoire.
I enjoyed this book not just because it goes over breakups, but also because it discusses digital communication more generally. We all spend hours analyzing texts, comments, likes, and other forms of digital interaction that might as well be meaningless to the sender. The different mediums of digital communication (or the intersection between that and traditional means of communication) are seen as siloed in our minds. You can have two ongoing conversations with the same person on two different platforms, and solely due to the nature of how one views each platform, the conversations will likely be different. I would never send you a work reminder in your Instagram DMs, and I'd never send you memes through email. The formality and informality of various digital platforms is something dissected heavily in this book (but not too academically, which is actually one of my qualms), as well as the cross-generational interpretations of these platforms.
Something I wish this book did better was be less poppy and more academic. I understand that this wasn't the point of the book, but sometimes it just felt really gossipy for no reason. The author spent too much time discussing the details of her students' personal relationships and not enough time developing her ideas more. For a book I had to read for class, I just wish I could use more information from it. Also, the way she recounted the stories of her millennial students was just generally difficult to follow. Not much punctuation was used, and it seemed like she simply transcribed an audio recording of the conversation without actually looking to see if it made any sense to readers who don't know the collaborators personally.
While not a critique, it's important to note how dated this book already feels. The undergraduate college students in the book regularly use Facebook. This is something foreign to undergrads today. In fact, I'd be interested to see how the new social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok (or even Vine), Reddit, Twitter (now known as X), and Discord would fit into these discussions. It would be cool to see anthropological analyses of "soft-launching" one's partner on Instagram, or curating one's story on Instagram and Snapchat differently, or having different roles in different Discord servers. What are the differences in the nature of livestreams on each of these platforms? Why do people choose to use some and not the others?
Overall, I would definitely say this is an easy read. It's something which can be zoomed through, and I enjoyed most of it. I'm sure there are more academic things out there, and the author cites many great sources and scholars if that's something you're looking for.
January 19, 2012
Until recently, romantic commitments were all about the tangible: rings, pins, letter jackets. All of these things let people know when a couple was together and when they broke up. But with the advent of social media, the rules are changing. What does it mean to be “Facebook Official,” and what happens when one person in a relationship cancels that status? What are the rules when it comes to breaking up in a 2.0 world?
Gershon is an associate professor at Indiana University, and a few years back, she was teaching a linguistic anthropology class. In order to get her students thinking about language and its impact, she asked them what makes for a bad breakup. Instead of hearing stories about cheaters and love lost, her students started arguing about etiquette, especially in light of social media technology. Was it okay to break up with someone via email? On Facebook? Via text? As her students argued over logistics, Gershon started formulating a research question. The result is The Breakup 2.0, an accessible rehashing of the interviews Gershon did with 72 undergraduate students (18 male, 52 female).
It’s a limited but very intriguing study. Because social media usage is limited amongst older generations, Gershon’s focus on the upcoming generation is particularly fascinating. Social media users who have essentially grown up with the technology have their own set of rules that govern its usage, and these explanations of the norms and mores are some of the book’s most fascinating tidbits. The increasing reliance on technology to conduct personal relationships is alarming but also fast becoming what is normal and expected. Examining it is important in order to better understand society.
One of the most interesting parts of the book focuses on the usage of Facebook, both in beginning and terminating relationships. Gershon makes a particularly astute observation when she points out Facebook (by far the most public of all 2.0 technologies) is implicitly conservative in its operations: by creating options for relationship statuses, Facebook present monogamy as the ideal and encourages users to link to one another’s profiles. It is an interesting observation that many casual Facebook users have probably missed.
Although the book starts to feel overly long in its final third, Gershon’s observations about 2.0 technologies and breakups are still relevant and important. Recommended to those interested especially in how social media 2.0 technology is changing our relationships.
The Breakup 2.0 by Ilana Gershon. Cornell University Press: 2010. Electronic galley accepted for review via NetGalley.
Gershon is an associate professor at Indiana University, and a few years back, she was teaching a linguistic anthropology class. In order to get her students thinking about language and its impact, she asked them what makes for a bad breakup. Instead of hearing stories about cheaters and love lost, her students started arguing about etiquette, especially in light of social media technology. Was it okay to break up with someone via email? On Facebook? Via text? As her students argued over logistics, Gershon started formulating a research question. The result is The Breakup 2.0, an accessible rehashing of the interviews Gershon did with 72 undergraduate students (18 male, 52 female).
It’s a limited but very intriguing study. Because social media usage is limited amongst older generations, Gershon’s focus on the upcoming generation is particularly fascinating. Social media users who have essentially grown up with the technology have their own set of rules that govern its usage, and these explanations of the norms and mores are some of the book’s most fascinating tidbits. The increasing reliance on technology to conduct personal relationships is alarming but also fast becoming what is normal and expected. Examining it is important in order to better understand society.
One of the most interesting parts of the book focuses on the usage of Facebook, both in beginning and terminating relationships. Gershon makes a particularly astute observation when she points out Facebook (by far the most public of all 2.0 technologies) is implicitly conservative in its operations: by creating options for relationship statuses, Facebook present monogamy as the ideal and encourages users to link to one another’s profiles. It is an interesting observation that many casual Facebook users have probably missed.
Although the book starts to feel overly long in its final third, Gershon’s observations about 2.0 technologies and breakups are still relevant and important. Recommended to those interested especially in how social media 2.0 technology is changing our relationships.
The Breakup 2.0 by Ilana Gershon. Cornell University Press: 2010. Electronic galley accepted for review via NetGalley.
August 10, 2016
By the time The Breakup 2.0 was published, it was outdated. I’m actually surprised that it’s a UP because 1) the technological landscape changes so fast studies like these are more apropos for blogs than books 2) the sample size was also pretty small for a book—75ish I think and probably pretty homogenous since she had a snowball sample based on her Indiana University networks 3) there are hardly any sources. On the upside, the was an easy read, very undergraduate appropriate, but I can hear my students saying, “this is so 2010.”
Gershon makes one point: media ideologies, remediation, and idioms of practice shape our online communication. Media ideologies are people’s beliefs about communicative technology. Remediation contextualizes people’s media use in relationship to other technologies, and idioms of practice explain how media usage is socially constructed. She quotes a lot of students to make the point that there is no standardized practice for using technology, but reminds us that technology doesn’t use us, we use it to be social and we should more readily admit that.
In terms of breaking up. People do it in as many different modalities as they have available to them. Some use a text to start a breakup conversation that will later take place on the phone or face to face. Others Prefer IM because there can be a back and forth exchange which helps the jilted partner come to terms with the other’s intentions. Some prefer email or text to discourage further questions/communication/closure. Some change the relationship status on Facebook before telling their partner. Some couples craft Facebook breakup posts together.
I certainly don’t mean to undermine undergraduate relationships, but the study might have been more timeless if she spoke to folks who had lengthier relationship histories. If, in your first relationship, you break up via Facebook but then mature and consider other modalities that could be interesting or even vice versa, but this focus on youth who may have been describing their first relationships seemed a little skewed. Married folks and divorce via social media or a study on social media and infidelity (like mine) would certainly more appropriately round out this data set.
Gershon makes one point: media ideologies, remediation, and idioms of practice shape our online communication. Media ideologies are people’s beliefs about communicative technology. Remediation contextualizes people’s media use in relationship to other technologies, and idioms of practice explain how media usage is socially constructed. She quotes a lot of students to make the point that there is no standardized practice for using technology, but reminds us that technology doesn’t use us, we use it to be social and we should more readily admit that.
In terms of breaking up. People do it in as many different modalities as they have available to them. Some use a text to start a breakup conversation that will later take place on the phone or face to face. Others Prefer IM because there can be a back and forth exchange which helps the jilted partner come to terms with the other’s intentions. Some prefer email or text to discourage further questions/communication/closure. Some change the relationship status on Facebook before telling their partner. Some couples craft Facebook breakup posts together.
I certainly don’t mean to undermine undergraduate relationships, but the study might have been more timeless if she spoke to folks who had lengthier relationship histories. If, in your first relationship, you break up via Facebook but then mature and consider other modalities that could be interesting or even vice versa, but this focus on youth who may have been describing their first relationships seemed a little skewed. Married folks and divorce via social media or a study on social media and infidelity (like mine) would certainly more appropriately round out this data set.
December 7, 2011
This was interesting, but for me I think something was missing. The author primarily presents observations and analysis of how undergraduates use Facebook during the course of a romantic relationship, but I think the book could have benefitted from more depth. It's hard to put my finger on, but I think what I wanted was more comparison between how these things play out on Facebook vs the real world - maybe more of the psychology behind why we break up with people the way we do. Or perhaps just expanding it outside of romantic relationships to how friendships play out online. I'm not sure, exactly. (I will say that it's nice to know that I'm not the only person who can be having a crucial conversation over email and not even mention it when spending time with the person IRL.) Anyway this was interesting enough, but I think I'd only recommend it if you're really interested in how social media is changing our interpersonal relations (so if you read every word on apophenia, you'll want to get your hands on this).
August 21, 2010
The Breakup 2.0 is a funny, smart, compassionate book and a fast and delightful read. The theoretical issues it deals with are interesting: How do we construe, interpret, and negotiate new technologies? Who do we imagine our publics to be as we blog, post on facebook, and reply-to-all? Is there consensus on what it means to text versus online chat? Or more generally, how do we construct (or DO we satisfactorily construct?) social conventions?
Breakup 2.0 is based on a brilliant insight: if you want to look at how the form of the message matters, look at the one situation where the content can't matter at all. What, after all, is the satisfactory answer to, "Why are you breaking up with me?"
Breakup 2.0 is based on a brilliant insight: if you want to look at how the form of the message matters, look at the one situation where the content can't matter at all. What, after all, is the satisfactory answer to, "Why are you breaking up with me?"
December 6, 2014
Unfortunately writing a book about digital communication technologies is bound to be outdated the moment it's sent to the publisher, and whose by the time it's printed. Though Gershon does a good job charting the relationships of her interviewees, the examples feel distant. AOL Instant Messenger away messages? Facebook format changes from 4 years ago?
No solid rules have been developed for those going into or getting out of a relationships on Facebook/Twitter/tumblr/etc. The book is perhaps a nice snapshot of where our technology was at the time, but serves little purpose beyond that.
[read this along with an AMST 101 class as TA]
No solid rules have been developed for those going into or getting out of a relationships on Facebook/Twitter/tumblr/etc. The book is perhaps a nice snapshot of where our technology was at the time, but serves little purpose beyond that.
[read this along with an AMST 101 class as TA]
July 25, 2010
Gershon offers some interesting points on the idea of remediation with new technology. With that said, it seems that some of the arguments are a bit lacking in terms of conviction. At some points, it also seemed a bit repetitive.
It would have also been interesting to see the exploration of the use of Twitter, but unfortunately, her studies were conducted the year before Twitter became huge.
Personally, I think the rating of 3 stars is a bit low, and would have preferred to rate it as 3.5 had goodreads allowed me to.
It would have also been interesting to see the exploration of the use of Twitter, but unfortunately, her studies were conducted the year before Twitter became huge.
Personally, I think the rating of 3 stars is a bit low, and would have preferred to rate it as 3.5 had goodreads allowed me to.
unfinished-reads
March 17, 2011It turns out that this is more a treatment of an idea that, much like a lot of the sociology-type books I've picked up as of late, might be more useful in magazine form. I was done after 24 pages, and it really didn't grab me even a little bit up to that point. Not for me.
I'm also starting to wonder if I'm just not into sociology books at all.
I'm also starting to wonder if I'm just not into sociology books at all.
November 17, 2010
Interesting read about how relationships have changed with social networking. Covers things such as: breaking up via text-messaging, making your new relationship "facebook official" and many other related topics. Would recommend for anyone who uses a lot of social networking and/or texting. Not a guide to breaking up!
March 28, 2012
A very interesting essay on the new social medias and the way the interfere in people's relationships. More or less is about facebook, but there are nice insights into skype or sms.
What a really appreciate is that I got married before facebook, it was sooo much more easier!
THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE PREVIEW!
What a really appreciate is that I got married before facebook, it was sooo much more easier!
THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE PREVIEW!
January 3, 2012
The Breakup 2.0 Book review
Not a how to guide, this book talk about how today’s technologies have influenced our break ups and what is considered a “Good” and “Bad” break up. A funny, smart and delightful little read this book deals with the theoretical issues and the idioms of practice. This book offers an insight to how different communication forms matter and are interpreted.
Not a how to guide, this book talk about how today’s technologies have influenced our break ups and what is considered a “Good” and “Bad” break up. A funny, smart and delightful little read this book deals with the theoretical issues and the idioms of practice. This book offers an insight to how different communication forms matter and are interpreted.
June 23, 2013
I am glad I didn't read this book for the book review I had to do for my anthro class last semester. The book is interesting, but a little simplistic. I don't feel that Gershon did anything special, or make any theories that pressed boundaries, it was a lot of common sense observations. It left me wanting to the focus the article based on this book had.
January 1, 2016
I found this book both informative and entertaining to read since it basically ridicules my generation (and I love it for that). However if I had never been required to read this for a class I probably never would have picked it up. The author drags the topic on for a bit. There's only so much you can say about the subject and the rest most of us already know.
December 30, 2011
This book had an interesting premise, but Gershom severely limited herself by making the book solely about breakups over various media. If you read the first two chapters, you pretty much have already read the rest of it.
April 19, 2013
Read this book for my Research Methods course. Interesting read, insightful observations from her interviews. Her conclusion could have gone more in depth, it was more of a brief overview. Definitely has made me look at how I interact with technology in my everyday life.
February 16, 2016
Scholarly, mandatory reading.
December 29, 2016
Read this for my Ethnography class, found it interesting, especially when thinking about modern ethnography and "doing ethnography at home."
Read
January 15, 2012I blogged this one: http://mclicious.org/2012/01/15/trial...
March 11, 2015
It's not a bad read, but it's already outdated.
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