(no subject)
Back out of retirement to jot down some things.
I was sitting in a coffee shop thinking about this today.
When I started being 'online' -- e.g. using America Online / the Imagination Network in junior high, my initial impression was that of pure insane wonder. For days after first getting on a chatroom, I would think to myself "wow, everyone could have an online persona, anyone on the street could be someone I talk to online and I just wouldn't know it!"
It was relatively overwhelming.
Then 'social networking' came about with Friendster and such, and everyone _was_ online, the mystique was gone and it was sort of a prerequisite for everyone under the age of 30 to be online. With a pic, info and undirected graph of who their friends were (in name, at least).
It was now like being on the road, you had to have a driver's license.
What used to, so long ago, impress me about the net and being online is now what mortifies me. Everyone has an online persona, but it's not pseudo-anonymized -- it's the harsh light of reality, with pictures, annotated dates and times. People aren't pretending to be someone they're not -- they're pretending to be themselves. We've all profiled ourselves into a corner, flushed our own privacy down the toilet and none of us are even sure why. Being young, having fun, drinking pepsi.
Are we having fun? Filling out forms and cataloging pictures of people trying so hard to look like they're having fun? Is the conspicuous consumption of alienated experience something to be proud of? Are stupid little web applications broadening the social gulf between everyone in my generation?
I'm not sure, but if you need me I'll be making wooden screws in the hills thinking about the answers.
I was sitting in a coffee shop thinking about this today.
When I started being 'online' -- e.g. using America Online / the Imagination Network in junior high, my initial impression was that of pure insane wonder. For days after first getting on a chatroom, I would think to myself "wow, everyone could have an online persona, anyone on the street could be someone I talk to online and I just wouldn't know it!"
It was relatively overwhelming.
Then 'social networking' came about with Friendster and such, and everyone _was_ online, the mystique was gone and it was sort of a prerequisite for everyone under the age of 30 to be online. With a pic, info and undirected graph of who their friends were (in name, at least).
It was now like being on the road, you had to have a driver's license.
What used to, so long ago, impress me about the net and being online is now what mortifies me. Everyone has an online persona, but it's not pseudo-anonymized -- it's the harsh light of reality, with pictures, annotated dates and times. People aren't pretending to be someone they're not -- they're pretending to be themselves. We've all profiled ourselves into a corner, flushed our own privacy down the toilet and none of us are even sure why. Being young, having fun, drinking pepsi.
Are we having fun? Filling out forms and cataloging pictures of people trying so hard to look like they're having fun? Is the conspicuous consumption of alienated experience something to be proud of? Are stupid little web applications broadening the social gulf between everyone in my generation?
I'm not sure, but if you need me I'll be making wooden screws in the hills thinking about the answers.