Thursday, September 09, 2010

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.



4 comments:

Danica-Dragonfly said...

It's true ... but then what does that make us bloggers?

I consider my blog "friends" to be my friends ... as many (and you know who you are) have shown this in ways other than by posting things the rest of the world can see.

I agree with the FB and Twitter crap ... and I shudder when I see teens (and even younger) standing around (sometimes WITHIN their group of friends) ... TEXTING AHHHH!!! My kids are not getting cell phones ... no way no how!! But I still feel that blogging is somehow different.

Maybe I am biased ... but I'd be bereft to wake up and not have you guys out there at the flick of a few keys.

brite said...

Dani, I too have mixed feelings about blogging being 'tmi', but blogs were around before Assbook and Twatter and require more than just the click of a like or dislike button.To blog (successfully) you have to be able to write, there has to be some substance to what is posted that is beyond an update on your day to day doings, be it a humorous slant or an intelligent critique.
I would also miss reading the missives from my bloggy friends, so please don't take the article as a personal slam, it was just something that struck a chord about how the interwebs can be irritating.

Amethyst Anne said...

I agree with both of you. I find FB clicky and can resemble old high school days. Twitter- I don't bother to read it or subscribe. What I do agree on, is the amount of personal information we openly and freely broadcast over the internet. I am always torn when it comes to blogging about how much to tell, and even more so with FB. Yet I am guilty of spending far too much time with both!
Either way, I fiercely protect the amount of information I share, sometimes at the expense of a damn good blog post!

idleprimate said...

i often fall into the "i have no privacy anyway" apathy.

not that anyone ever asks, but if they did, i would counsel bailing on the facebook ship. i was hooked in the worst way, and yet never missed it when i cancelled my account, and as a bonus, i feel certain my sense of reality improved.

my jury is out on blogs right now. i started to feel like my blogging was egotistical/pointless/masturbatory. as well, during a dark summer of the soul, i thought maybe i didn't want to leave a trail of mouldy breadcrumbs on the internet. i read blogs, but am still undecided about it as an aspect of my own digital identity.