Social Networks: Erziehung zur Immateriellen Arbeit 2.0

Abstract taken from the English language original (Immaterial Labour 2.0. or, Learning to Like Social Networks):

"Can one already glimpse the outlines of these future forms of resistance,capable of standing up to marketing’s blandishments? Many young people have a strange craving to be ‘motivated’, they’re always asking for special courses and continuing education; it is their job to discover whose ends these serve, just as older people discovered, with considerable difficulty, who was benefiting from disciplines. A snake’s coils are even more intricate than a mole’s burrow." (Deleuze, 1995, p. 182)

Facebook is undoubtedly the biggest and brightest new star of the media firmament. There are now 500 million users and counting, making it the world’s second most popular website, behind only Google. More importantly, Facebook users log an average of 60 minutes each day, by visiting the site an astounding 13 times from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep (Facebook 2011). The superlatives of Facebook are not limited to the social and communicative realm. In early 2011, its market value was pegged at almost $83 B (TechCrunch, 2011a). Given that Facebook has only been open to the general public since the fall of 2006, it seems likely that its social, and political-economic significance will only increase in the foreseeable future. Indeed, it is our contention that social networks like Facebook are not only exemplary of what is increasingly known as the Web 2.0, they are also paradigmatic of an emergent form of 'immaterial labour'.

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