Tues, March 31st: Benjamin absolves himself of all entertainment on the internet; all films and television; and all image-based media.
I gave up, amongst other things this week, Facebook.
People who know me probably wouldn't identify me as an internet junkie. I wouldn't have either, and I always held a somewhat aloof image of myself as being better than all the hoi polloi who were really addicted to their media.
This has been a humbling week.
There are a lot of reasons I believe that our modern means of information transmission will be the end of us, most of which I'm working on an essay to explain. This, however, is intended to be a personal anecdote; a journal and progression of more intimate nature- and I will continue to update it as I fight to battle the beast.
You see, it is my firm opinion that the internet, in almost all cases, has no fruitful applications. Once in a great while I will access the full scholarly might of JSTOR or BLAST!, but for the most part I find myself- along with a great many others- doing what is, I believe, colloquially referred to as "dicking around." Facebook provides hours a day of potential to feel connected, important, entertained, while doing nothing real for your undrstanding of the people around you, bringing you no closer to your friends, and giving you only fleeting amusement. Google has the power to bring anything to your fingertips, or more importantly eyes, but that power is rarely used for good over evil. A thousand bits of context-free trivia are delivered to millions of people every minute, fed by the concurrent tumor-like growths of YouTube, Newgrounds, and forums for every hobby imaginable. Wikipedia provides an intoxicating flow of what feels like information, but again is trivia. It's the ultimate trap for today's pseudo-intellectual; in a world where we define intelligence not as knowing about something, but knowing of many things Wikipedia is a pomegranate in the hands of a populus something like Persephone: Starving to death in the middle of a feast, and confronted with a thousand, million, billion little gems.
Those six seeds really, really cost her.
None of these things are inherent evils. There isn't anything morally wrong about entertainment, or enjoyment, or the internet. I'm not here to ring in some new intellectual Temperance. The problem is not the content of the message here, it's the assumptions it comes packaged in.
I think we're all a little jaded to the warnings about the dropping attention span of our world. Clearly, the world couldn't pay attention long enough to become concerned, so I'll leave that battle to other, stauncher giants in the fields of behavioral science. What concerns me most are the little "go", "forward" and "back" buttons on my browser- and perhaps, above all, "refresh".
Instantaneous gratification has arrived, and it is called the Internet. Anything you want is within mere seconds, no more. Anything. Vast volumes of information, trivia, entertainment, all only a click away. And we keep getting faster: Dial-up internet was once a luxury, but now most people would rather be waterboarded than forced to use it. We become impatient as soon as a page takes more than a few fractions of a second to load- think I'm exaggerating? Time yourself sometime. It's frightening.
Patience is a virtue; one that the instant information world is stomping out.
Furthermore, in the realm of things like Facebook and Twitter, is the erroneous sense that we need to be permanently and instantaneously connected to all of our friends. I was horrified to discover that I've begun to think in terms of facebook statuses: Whenever I do something good, or bad, or trivial in general I immediately have a witty third-person commentary ready. Why, I ask, does the world need to know that I bought great coffee today? Is it imperative that they realize what a bang-up day I had last week, or how much drama there is in a family event? No. Quite frankly, almost (if not all) of the information we can transmit via Facebook or Twitter isn't even worth sharing with other people. In fact, that is the point. We live in a society that has redefined intelligence not as knowing a lot about something, but knowing of many things. Trivia. It's why all our games are about it now: CatchPhrase, Jeopardy, crossword puzzles, Wheel of Fortune. We feel smart when we know answers to these things, but what are those answers? Junk. Trivia. But the only thing we transmit as information in todays world. We've created, as the great Neil Postman said, pseudo-contexts for it all- rather than learn things contextually, we've taken to the much more entertaining method of learning whatever the hell we feel amused by, then creating a context for it.
Tacitus would roll in his grave to see it all. Immediate, unfiltered, undiscerning communication.
Lastly, I'm terrified by the way personal communications are breaking down. People no longer can make eye contact; they only feel comfortable in large groups of people, or on internet communication channels. I have friends, right here at the college, who I almost only speak to via IM clients. I've offered to meet with them for conversation, but they still haven't managed to take me up on it. I can think of one person, delightful as they are, who I only ever talked to via Facebook. I haven't had a real conversation with them since I gave it up, and the ball is in their court.
Who feels like placing bets on whether we ever really talk?
4/19/09- Benjamin sets 4/30 as the date he will stop using IM clients, except for situations scheduled in advance with people who are otherwise incapable of meeting with him in person. Benjamin still has not spoken with the Facebook Friend.
4/28/09- Benjamin meets with the Facebook Friend
4/30/09- Benjamin abandons IM clients; discovers he has no social life. Zaq, I've got your message and will be sending you a detailed response just as soon as I have the time! Good to hear from you, friend!
People who know me probably wouldn't identify me as an internet junkie. I wouldn't have either, and I always held a somewhat aloof image of myself as being better than all the hoi polloi who were really addicted to their media.
This has been a humbling week.
There are a lot of reasons I believe that our modern means of information transmission will be the end of us, most of which I'm working on an essay to explain. This, however, is intended to be a personal anecdote; a journal and progression of more intimate nature- and I will continue to update it as I fight to battle the beast.
You see, it is my firm opinion that the internet, in almost all cases, has no fruitful applications. Once in a great while I will access the full scholarly might of JSTOR or BLAST!, but for the most part I find myself- along with a great many others- doing what is, I believe, colloquially referred to as "dicking around." Facebook provides hours a day of potential to feel connected, important, entertained, while doing nothing real for your undrstanding of the people around you, bringing you no closer to your friends, and giving you only fleeting amusement. Google has the power to bring anything to your fingertips, or more importantly eyes, but that power is rarely used for good over evil. A thousand bits of context-free trivia are delivered to millions of people every minute, fed by the concurrent tumor-like growths of YouTube, Newgrounds, and forums for every hobby imaginable. Wikipedia provides an intoxicating flow of what feels like information, but again is trivia. It's the ultimate trap for today's pseudo-intellectual; in a world where we define intelligence not as knowing about something, but knowing of many things Wikipedia is a pomegranate in the hands of a populus something like Persephone: Starving to death in the middle of a feast, and confronted with a thousand, million, billion little gems.
Those six seeds really, really cost her.
None of these things are inherent evils. There isn't anything morally wrong about entertainment, or enjoyment, or the internet. I'm not here to ring in some new intellectual Temperance. The problem is not the content of the message here, it's the assumptions it comes packaged in.
I think we're all a little jaded to the warnings about the dropping attention span of our world. Clearly, the world couldn't pay attention long enough to become concerned, so I'll leave that battle to other, stauncher giants in the fields of behavioral science. What concerns me most are the little "go", "forward" and "back" buttons on my browser- and perhaps, above all, "refresh".
Instantaneous gratification has arrived, and it is called the Internet. Anything you want is within mere seconds, no more. Anything. Vast volumes of information, trivia, entertainment, all only a click away. And we keep getting faster: Dial-up internet was once a luxury, but now most people would rather be waterboarded than forced to use it. We become impatient as soon as a page takes more than a few fractions of a second to load- think I'm exaggerating? Time yourself sometime. It's frightening.
Patience is a virtue; one that the instant information world is stomping out.
Furthermore, in the realm of things like Facebook and Twitter, is the erroneous sense that we need to be permanently and instantaneously connected to all of our friends. I was horrified to discover that I've begun to think in terms of facebook statuses: Whenever I do something good, or bad, or trivial in general I immediately have a witty third-person commentary ready. Why, I ask, does the world need to know that I bought great coffee today? Is it imperative that they realize what a bang-up day I had last week, or how much drama there is in a family event? No. Quite frankly, almost (if not all) of the information we can transmit via Facebook or Twitter isn't even worth sharing with other people. In fact, that is the point. We live in a society that has redefined intelligence not as knowing a lot about something, but knowing of many things. Trivia. It's why all our games are about it now: CatchPhrase, Jeopardy, crossword puzzles, Wheel of Fortune. We feel smart when we know answers to these things, but what are those answers? Junk. Trivia. But the only thing we transmit as information in todays world. We've created, as the great Neil Postman said, pseudo-contexts for it all- rather than learn things contextually, we've taken to the much more entertaining method of learning whatever the hell we feel amused by, then creating a context for it.
Tacitus would roll in his grave to see it all. Immediate, unfiltered, undiscerning communication.
Lastly, I'm terrified by the way personal communications are breaking down. People no longer can make eye contact; they only feel comfortable in large groups of people, or on internet communication channels. I have friends, right here at the college, who I almost only speak to via IM clients. I've offered to meet with them for conversation, but they still haven't managed to take me up on it. I can think of one person, delightful as they are, who I only ever talked to via Facebook. I haven't had a real conversation with them since I gave it up, and the ball is in their court.
Who feels like placing bets on whether we ever really talk?
4/19/09- Benjamin sets 4/30 as the date he will stop using IM clients, except for situations scheduled in advance with people who are otherwise incapable of meeting with him in person. Benjamin still has not spoken with the Facebook Friend.
4/28/09- Benjamin meets with the Facebook Friend
4/30/09- Benjamin abandons IM clients; discovers he has no social life. Zaq, I've got your message and will be sending you a detailed response just as soon as I have the time! Good to hear from you, friend!
Check you myspace, mhmm.
ReplyDeleteI've been taken victim by this very illness you speak.
I wrote about a six paragraph reply and it got deleted, and alas I have not the time to rewrite it! This will be spoken of in more detail at a later date though.