@ohheyitshonor
In today’s world, social media sites have become a part of the human persona. Acting as a third arm, websites such as Facebook or Twitter have often become how people know each other best, and are a large part of how they perceive others. This directly reflects Coleman and Shirky’s idea of the media changing the user.
The internet has become, as Coleman describes, a place where humans mentally reside in X-Reality, and can control how others perceive them. Coleman states on X-Reality, “…people are making their networked worlds inhabitable. In other words, the makers are making themselves at home by way of their avatars.” This control is, as the quote states, allowing humans to create a world to reside to, what they think is escaping from reality. But these “avatars” are becoming who people know us as, and as Coleman suggests, are changing us. For example, a person who is shy face to face may be very social when they are behind a screen, posting picture with friends and generally interacting more with people than in their actual reality.
Overall, both Coleman and Shirky’s theory is clearly reflected in the actions taken by social media’s users. It is clear that “avatars” are becoming more a more a part of who we are, growing into why we could call our third arm, as it is a s much a part of human’s personas as their appearance.