Press Leak
Too Much Information Age

Here's a great piece that pretty much sums up how I feel about 'social networking', Assbook and the overwhelming vapidity of what's happening on the interwebs these days.

Orwell That Ends Well

by Randall Amster

In just the past week, a friend lost his cellphone, and another was robbed. One fell asleep in the bathtub, and another visited her old elementary school. A number had interesting fare for dinner. Some liked the weather, others lamented it. One notable presence in particular diligently posted her whereabouts at all times. Pretty typical stuff actually, and almost none of it interesting in the least.

This isn't the Information Age - it's the Too Much Information Age. Everyone is posting their diaries, dalliances, likes, and longings because they have an audience of "friends" who border on being voyeurs. Disconcertingly, there's no compulsion to participate in this apart from peer pressure, which is apparently a powerful motivator even well beyond one's high school years.

And this is precisely the genius of the Self-Surveilling Society in which we find ourselves: it taps into the psychology of our teen years (to know and be known) and exports it to the world writ large. In this lexicon, your friends become (as in high school) your style-setters, sounding boards, commiserators, gossip sources, reality checkers, and existential validators. If you do something and don't share it, did it really happen?

Read the rest of " Orwell That Ends Well" here.