Kathryn Jezer-Morton, Ph.D.
Author of the biweekly “Brooding” column at The Cut, a section of New York magazine
Jia Tolentino
Staff writer at The New Yorker
The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything
Book Giveaway: FAN is giving away copies of The Story of Your Life to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
We might think we understand our own social-media habits, but most of us would come up short if asked to explain why we post the way we do. Posting happens in private, almost without thinking, yet it is never trivial: everything we share carries a set of values, often more aspirational than true to life. Why can’t we just be honest?
In The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything, Kathryn Jezer-Morton, Ph.D., sets out to answer that question. For two decades she has been trying to make sense of what we are doing online, and here she examines what shifted around the turn of the millennium, when ordinary people began seeing themselves as brands. She traveled across the United States to interview everyday people about their social-media lives, asking them things they had never been asked, and pairs those conversations with her own experience to show how algorithm-driven platforms reshape not only how we share but what we share.
The result is neither technophobic nor moralizing. It is an emotion-led study of the way we present ourselves online, from baby bumps to political performance to vacation photos, that asks whether the flattening pull of social media does justice to the rich narratives we each carry.
Jezer-Morton is the author of the biweekly “Brooding” column at The Cut, in which she explores modern family life. She has written about domestic life and digital culture for the New York Times, The Nation, The Guardian, and Jezebel, among many other publications. She will be in conversation with Jia Tolentino, an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the acclaimed essay collection Trick Mirror.
This event is suitable for youth ages 12 and up. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.
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Upcoming Events
The Tolerance Generation: Growing Up Online in the Anti-Bullying Era
Sarah Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant professor of sociology at Boston University
Matt Rafalow, Ph.D.
Sociologist, senior staff researcher at Google (YouTube), and research fellow at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
ON ZOOM
Hope in Motion
Arshay Cooper
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Evanston Township High School Auditorium
Note: Event start time is Central Time (CT).
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything
Kathryn Jezer-Morton, Ph.D.
Author of the biweekly “Brooding” column at The Cut, a section of New York magazine
Jia Tolentino
Staff writer at The New Yorker
ON ZOOM