Slow Burn
As of this fall, I’ll have been “on the internet” for 17 years, pretty much uninterrupted. (The longest single break I had was Boot Camp in 1999.) I think that’s probably enough time to have a good idea of how the internet has shaped discussions and changed how we interact with one another, and further to figure out how to react and respond to it.
The first thing to note is how intoxicating the rapid back-and-forth discussions can feel, at least for me, on the internet. In person, I really love long, in-depth discussions, and relish them when I find them. The exchange of ideas and information spurs the brain to action and stimulates the imagination. I’m not sure precisely what’s different about blog- and forum- and Twitter-based discussions, but there is something there, maybe with just enough isolation from the other people involved, but enough immediacy to make a rapid response the expectation.
Now, to me, that’s often led to a heated atmosphere in online discussion. Again, something about the combination of immediacy and distance creates a friction that can (often but certainly not always) create an atmosphere that is really the opposite of conversation and rational debate. In some ways, I suppose it just intensifies certain human behaviors, but at least for me personally, I’m thinking they’re the sort that can use some ratcheting down of intensity. Being more slow and deliberate allows the opportunity to let arguments and counterpoints sink in, time to digest as it were, and maybe lead to more fruitful responses.
This is, basically, antithetical to how the observed internet culture works currently. Rather than allowing conversations to slowly grow and evolve, for facts to be uncovered, for analysis to be teased out, blog posts have to be commented on within 48 hours or not at all (with occasional exceptions). A Tweet is old news by the time six or eight hours have gone by. Everything has to burn hot, intense, immediate… and then we forget about it. Protests are firestorms of activity, followed by (at best) low simmering discontent, if not cool apathy.
I’d like to change that, at least with myself. And as far as manifestos go, that’s not all that inspiring, but what the heck. It’s how I’m deciding to interact with the flow of information (for the most part), and the rest of the world can follow me or not. I am hoping, though, that it will lead to more robust and thoughtful commentary from me, if not necessarily the most timely.
Mirrored from Bum Scoop.