Existential crisis alert: as more and more of our lives are conducted in the "unreal" world of social networking, we will increasingly start to question the nature of our "real" lives.
I think that a lot of the backlash against social networking is the product of cognitive dissonance; Specifically that Facebook so efficiently reveals our significance (or otherwise) in the wider world. Facebook is perhaps the first technology that reveals to us that the major events in our own lives are, on the macro scale, merely background noise. Learning of an old friend giving birth seems very much less significant when we learn of it not through direct communication but through a wall post that is read by 600 other "friends".
Space travel gave us the ability to see our own world from afar, revealing to us the fragility of our world and the insignificance of human existence when seen from a cosmic scale. Many astronauts describe being profoundly changed by seeing the "blue marble" for themselves.
Perhaps these vertiginous experiences, these sudden shifts in perspective will occur more frequently with the advance of technology. Perhaps the opposite will occur and with the decline in mass media we will become increasingly insular and narcissistic. Perhaps our reaction to being able to see the sum of all human life will be to shield our eyes from it. We live in interesting times.
I don't relate to this. I finally pulled out of social networking altogether based on the fact that it made everything too significant, not too insignificant. Most of what is posted on twitter or on facebook walls would normally be kept to one's self; it was already insignificant. Now people are commenting on, debating, and retweeting stuff that might have been worth mentioning while trying to make conversation over lunch, but certainly not worth calling anybody to tell.
Note that I post this as a comment on a comment of a news-aggregating site's comment thread on a blog (at least I'm hoping it's a blog and not a print column) hosted by website of the print magazine Forbes written by a columnist who wrote an essay debating the significance of a tweet (or class of personal emissions of which this tweet was representive) written by a guy who decided to delete 100 of his 300 apps.
Over lunch, mentioning that you just deleted 100 of the 300 apps on your iphone might be a spark for a good five minutes of conversation. On the internet, it sparks existential crises all over the world.
EDIT: I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well here. I really, deeply, truly, honestly don't want to know that Scoble deleted 100 of his apps. I can also wait up to two years before finding out whether old friends have had children without losing any of the "oh, that's nice" feeling that I'll have upon hearing it. Facebook and Twitter seem to addict people to a stream of trivialities that wouldn't be worth turning over for in isolation. It might have to do with the fact that an orgasm is made up of x number of rubs.
There are definitely two conflicting forces at work here - social networking making every action seem both insignificant (in comparison to the barrage of updates we receive every day) while also making almost every event quite significant (Hundreds of comments, comments on comments, etc). But one force might not necessarily prevail over the other - they can work it tandem, leading to interesting results.
One issue with jdietrich's initial comment is that his views on social networking revealing our true insignificance assume that the selves we display in the "unreal" world of social networking are, in fact, accurate representations of our "real world" selves; in reality, this is hardly the case. I know I've caught myself thinking "How will this Tweet or that FB update make me look to my friends/followers..." - hardly a parallel of how one lives and presents themselves in the unpredictable, variable real world.
This, in my mind, is the product of the conflicting forces of exaggerated significance / insignificance - the intense crafting of our online personalities. We've seen the blue marble - have realized that with all of the white noise, we must seem better, funnier, more interesting, to break through the noise. Yet at the same time we know that, should we actually get noticed, we will get noticed in a serious way - hundreds or thousands of people might see our update. The pressure is on.
As I see it, this is the product of these two conflicting forces: A high-pressure culture, a culture of scrutiny wherein every action and sentence is specifically crafted and cultivated. Orwell's 1984 comes to mind, but rather than Big Brother watching over everyone, it is the public that constantly watches each other.
"Facebook and Twitter seem to addict people to a stream of trivialities that wouldn't be worth turning over for in isolation."
I wonder how modern 24/7 news organizations have affected people in this regard. Some people are addicted to news: people want to be the first to know something, to give themselves a sense of elitism or pride in letting their friends in on the news, or feel "informed" during casual discussion.
But social media has what national news media often doesn't: personal attachment. National news media will churn out "news" no matter what. There will always be stories to report on--it's just a matter of how many people they affect. Social media "news" caries the same weight. Some news, like that I just ate a really yummy lunch, far outweigh the announcing of a new job, or announcing a death.
The personality of your Facebook or Twitter newsfeed is just that: personal. It's tailored to people YOU (say you) care about. Therein lies the addictive nature.
This reminds me of a film quote that has haunted me for 14 years:
"Is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? We shop at home, we surf the Web... at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history..."
Palmer Joss, "Contact", based on the book by Carl Sagan
Do your truly feel more connected due to social networks? Living remotely, about 2.5 hours from any major city, I've found the net usually to be little more than social filler: marginally better than being alone with my own thoughts.
Given that I don't have any close friends out here in the country, how do I feel close to people? I visit them.
We are still animals. Our brains have evolved to socialize with one another in a physical space. Social networking is fast food compared to the repast of in-person companionship.
Specifically that Facebook so efficiently reveals our significance (or otherwise) in the wider world. Facebook is perhaps the first technology that reveals to us that the major events in our own lives are, on the macro scale, merely background noise. Learning of an old friend giving birth seems very much less significant when we learn of it not through direct communication but through a wall post that is read by 600 other "friends".
Social Networking is the Total Perspective Vortex. Now, in order to survive its message, we all just need our own universe where we're the most important person in it, like Zaphod.
Perhaps the shift in perspective threatens to demonstrate to people that they are not really individuals after all, or that if they are, being so isn't really all that meaningful. The scale of digitized social interaction shows conclusively that are "just another brick in the wall", or just droplets in the vast river of human life.
The threat this has to the ego is countered by posting thoughts to social networks in an increasingly obsessive manner. "I post therefore I am."
A related point: I find that when I read a lot on the net about skills I am trying to develop, I get frustrated more easily with the skill-acquisition process. I think this may have something to do with constant reminders of the relative paltriness of my own accomplishments and ability compared to those of people I read about online.
I've never considered the parallel between what you describe - I think it's valid and eloquent.
I find the application of technology to the social context fascinating and at the same time worrisome, given the impact it has on our psyche. Part of me wants to chalk it up to "resisting change", but I feel like altering the social fabric by increasing efficiencies in our social lives isn't going to help psychological illnesses like depression.
I think it's high time philosophy was replaced by modern psychology. From a cold, reasoning point of you what you're saying makes sense. But in reality it's hardly relevant. Social contact of any form is healthy for the mind and the soul. More of it tends to tell our brains that "you're in a group" and "you have friends around", and the brain reacts with less depression and more good feelings.
Is that contact empty? Maybe, maybe not. Baby birds react to a model of a beak the same as they react to the whole, real thing: for their brains, the concept of "mother" is triggered by a long shiny thing. But their reaction is real.
Baby chimpanzees sometimes don't survive in the wild when their mother dies, even if they're inside a group and have plenty of food. Having a brother or an aunt around helps.
What happens in our minds is a lot more predictable then we like to think, but that's a good thing. It means we're very close to a checklist to a "good life". And I bet social contact is going to be on it.
While realising that you are only one in six billions and climbing can be overwhelming I really look forward to the creations of the people who will rail against this and achieve things which are truly great.
Yes, what you find on social networks is frequently trivial. For that matter, what most people talk about at family reunions is mostly trivial and what most people talk about at the local bar is even more trivial.
Also, yes, you can overuse social networks just as it is easy to overuse the local bar.
Used in moderation though, social networks, facebook in particular, have helped me keep in touch with many of my more distant relations that I otherwise would likely see and talk to only at weddings and funerals. It has helped me reconnect with friends from high school and college that I probably would have forgotten about.
Overall, I have found that, used in moderation, social networks and Facebook in particular have helped to enrish my social life and help me keep in touch with people that matter to me, and if the price of that is dealing with some triviality, I will pay it gladly.
Another perspective on the same basic point: The average neural message transmitted in your brain is trivial. What arises from the sum total of those messages is not. But there is probably no way to get to human-scale cognition without a lot of triviality at lower layers. There's probably no way to have a civil human society without these "trivialities", and if that is true, are they really trivial interactions?
Declarations of triviality encode an embedded value scheme that may or may not have actual utility for any purpose. I hesitate to label things "trivial"; it may be missing the forest for the trivial leaves.
I don't do Facebook for various reasons, but I don't look down on those who do use it.
I agree completely. Social networks are just that, social. Who thinks that catching up on "what is happening" with friends and relatives is worthless?
Additionally - why does everything have to be a binary choice between "completely worthless" and "world changing"? Social networks lie on a continuum between those two extremes.
Calling out social networking for being trivial is a bad analysis of what social networking is all about. Your social networking experience is defined by your friends and what you choose to socialize about. Scoble is socializing about mobile apps, and technology. I'm sure he has a whole raft of very insightful posts, balanced by more mundane ones like the example in the article.
In my experience, some friends post consistently interesting and thought provoking links and paragraphs. Others post about their coffee habits. That mirrors my "real life" experience of interacting with them. Why is there this expectation that online socializing should be inherently more profound than real life socializing?
I agree with your basic sentiment that social networking is driven by the tenor and tone of your real life friendships and interests. However, it differs from real-world socializing in that it is a broadcast model rather than a conversation model. When you and I meet for coffee, the cost of telling you about my new 19t Surly steel cog is, shall we say, two minutes. We only have so much time for coffee, and I ought to spend half of it listening to you, so am I going to decide that the cog is worth two minutes of our limited time to tell only one person about it?
But online, I appear to have unlimited time to broadcast what I want to say. If I spend two minutes on the cog, it takes away from two minutes of the Real World, but it doesn't appear to take away from our limited time together, and I blast it out to all my friends, some of whom may care.
I believe this gives me an incentive to talk about fairly trivial stuff that doesn't exist in the face-to-face world.
Thanks, that's a good distinction I was overlooking. It does seem to be somewhat dependent on the network we're talking about though. Twitter swings far to the broadcast side, but Facebook seems to push the needle back towards a conversation model. Maybe not a super in-depth conversation, but I do often have discussions with people around posts that were seemingly pretty trivial, meaning there was at least some level of interest and discourse.
That's actually another advantage of online interaction. In real life, you wouldn't be able to google something mid-conversation, so you'd basically need to sidetrack the conversation to be brought up to speed.
Or disadvantage. It's far easier to ask what a Surley steel cog is than to force a cognitive break to go look something up. You'll probably get a better answer too.
And you can also avoid the inevitable 30 minute trek through Wikipedia as you get distracted and end up looking at what other types of cogs you've been missing out on. And don't even start looking at sprokets.
Twitter allows me to interact with my friends more regularly. I still spend time at the pub, and those conversations can be more endearing because I'm up-to-date with the social hubub.
That said, we are in a special demographic. It's hard to validate our experiences against the "fragile youth".
Guys, thank you for your comments. I appreciate your understanding. Please note, however, that there is some irony in the piece, aside from the seriousness rightly accorded to the incident of the inattentive mother.
Your post will definitely get a lot of attention. I'm sure you know that. It's a good discussion we need to have. However, I think you could have used a little less irony and a lot more balance if you really wanted to get something across besides a rant.
Ultimately, one person's "triviality" is another's passion. The problem with social networking isn't it's triviality. It's that to consume what's important to us, we have to find it through all the "noise"--whatever that may mean to each individual. It used to be that we didn't have this problem because when two people meet, or a group for that matter, they immediately find a middle ground and talk about what's important to all. Such context breaks down when we broadcast information online.
This problem I feel will be solved in the years to come. Disclaimer: I'm working on it.
One of the biggest dilemmas in this industry I keep thinking about is: if I'm the creator of a platform for an unprecedented, and potentially addictive, online social experience, should I care if people overuse my product and try to educate them somehow, or should I keep coming up with incentives to make them use it more and more?
In other words, does the user own the entire responsibility for the amount of time he spends on social networks? Or it would be a good idea (on the moral side of the issue, anyway) if the makers provided a way for the consumers to limit their usage?
I think that a lot of the backlash against social networking is the product of cognitive dissonance; Specifically that Facebook so efficiently reveals our significance (or otherwise) in the wider world. Facebook is perhaps the first technology that reveals to us that the major events in our own lives are, on the macro scale, merely background noise. Learning of an old friend giving birth seems very much less significant when we learn of it not through direct communication but through a wall post that is read by 600 other "friends".
Space travel gave us the ability to see our own world from afar, revealing to us the fragility of our world and the insignificance of human existence when seen from a cosmic scale. Many astronauts describe being profoundly changed by seeing the "blue marble" for themselves.
Perhaps these vertiginous experiences, these sudden shifts in perspective will occur more frequently with the advance of technology. Perhaps the opposite will occur and with the decline in mass media we will become increasingly insular and narcissistic. Perhaps our reaction to being able to see the sum of all human life will be to shield our eyes from it. We live in interesting times.