Are you a Cyberflaneur?

Flaneurs are defined as ‘one who saunters around observing society’ (Oxford University Press, 2017). Moreover, ‘A Turtle on a Leash’ explains that they are people who take in their environments in a distracted manner (Richard Prouty, 2009). Flaneurs blend in with the anonymity of masses awaiting an opportunity to cause drama only to disappear again. This blog post will analyse how the cyberflaneur strolls through the cyber space of Instagram drawing attention to themselves as spectacles of display when they choose to.

Image 1 The Flâneur (N/A, 2015)

The idea of the slow walking window shopper in the arcades of 1839 France can be difficult to compare to the cyber space of Instagram. Walter Benjamin explains in relation to the flaneurs in 1839, “the street becomes a dwelling place for the flâneur; he is as much at home among the facades of the houses as a citizen within his four walls" (Walter Benjamin, 1982). This can be compared to how people feel and act on Instagram. People can feel more at home on social media then in the real world. They feel more at home while surfing the internet wasting hours going through their ‘Instagram Feed’ possibly reading articles and more than likely looking at pictures from those in their social circle or of celebrities. They are on Instagram at all hours possibly looking for information or observing the world as it is portrayed on social media. In my belief, there are two types of the cyberflaneur in Instagram. Firstly, there is the silent saunter who feels safe in the cyber world but too shy to post any content they are satisfied with analysing what other post only drawing attention to themselves for significant posts. These flaneurs have a strong similarity to the original which did not buy into the commodities of the society they live in by not posting on Instagram but looking through the windows of other users. These people can be compared to that of ‘keyboard warriors’, the second type is slightly different. They spend hours on Instagram (or other social medias) watching what others are posting but they also feel the need to draw attention to their selves by posting, commenting and sharing lots of content to gain attention. Though different, they both spend copious amounts of time on Instagram observing other in society.

In comparison, Evgeny Morozov claims that ‘hardy anyone surfs the web anymore’ but instead feels that apps have stunted the amount of cyberflaneurs in society. I am of the belief that the increased amount of social media apps has increased the amount of cyberflaneurs in comparison to when the internet was predominantly used. Data collected by the Global Web Index displays that the time spend daily on social media between 2012 and 2016 has risen from 1.5 hours to just above 2 hours (Mander, 2016). Moreover, the average total time spent on the internet daily is now at 6.5 hours from 5.5 hours in 2012 (Mander, 2016). With this data in-mind it must be inferred that the amount of cyberflaneurs has also increased. 

Benjamin, Walter. (1982). The Arcades Project. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London; England. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Mander, Jason. (16^th, May, 2016). Daily time spent on social networks rises to over 2 hours. Retrived from http://blog.globalwebindex.net/chart-of-the-day/daily-time-spent-on-social-networks/

Morozov, Evgeny. (4^th Feb 2012). The Death of the Cyberflaneur. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the-cyberflaneur.html

 N/A. (2015). The Flâneur [Image]. Retrieved from http://flaneurline.com/the-flaneur/

Oxford University Press. (2017). flâneur [Definition]. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/flaneur

Prouty, Richard. (28^th Oct 2009). A Turtle on a Leash. Retrieved from  http://www.onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2009/10/a-turtle-on-a-leash.html