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The "Why?" of social media -- and keeping your head above water
Here's an interesting article over at the New York Times' Book Review, talking about the movie Social Network and a new book by master programmer and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier called You Are Not a Gadget. Zadie Smith's article/review is more about her own history watching all this from a distance, and how she has purposely chosen to opt-out of the current craze.
Remember Orkut? It's still alive and well in South America, last I checked -- the premier dating site down there. It occurred to me one day a few years back, in one of those intuitive jumps that used to come easy but were very hard through my illness, that there was information up there that I really didn't want up for strangers to browse over. I'd put up a few personal details that were for me and friends only -- and I mean friends I really interacted with, not people I knew extremely casually. Orkut is affiliated with a much larger player (Google or Yahoo, I don't remember which now, but someone like that) and they understand that fads change. They actually have a way for you to delete your file.
Does it really delete the file? It was gone the last time I tried to access it, but who knows? In truth, that person was not me -- it was me trying to fit into the parameters of a network game. A game that could be just as depressing and exhausting as high school was -- that game where the rules changed every minute, can you curry favor here, and no matter what you did, it wasn't right?
Jaron Lanier has written a short (and to Zadie Smith, a frightening book) which in turns is apparently both practical and philosophical. I've already requested it from the library, which means I have to kick up the speed of reading Necessary Dreams. Lanier's interest is, how do we "reduce ourselves" to make our computer descriptions more accurate? Smith quotes Lanier: “Information systems,” he writes, “need to have information in order to run, but information under-represents reality” (my italics).
Lanier does not think there is a perfect computer analogue for that creation we call a person.
Well, of course not. I've been writing fiction for a long time, and trying to craft good characters during that time. I know I can do it, because it is part of what people read my works for -- but they are real only to me, because only I can see the shades and glimmers that I may not reveal to the reader, through intent or carelessness. In fact, I realized last night that I excel in dangling bits in front of people -- making them wait -- vaguely confirming or denying information.
Which may lead a current book idea into strange new directions. But in the meantime, I recommend the article as quite possibly worth your time -- and that, in a world spinning faster and faster all the while, may be one of the few things we can actually remain in control of. What is worth our time? I am about to ditch my cable, which may lead to more books, written and read, and sewing again. And savoring the time spent with real people, doing real things -- and making the few purely Internet relationships I have more meaningful.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/25/generation-why/?pagination=false
Remember Orkut? It's still alive and well in South America, last I checked -- the premier dating site down there. It occurred to me one day a few years back, in one of those intuitive jumps that used to come easy but were very hard through my illness, that there was information up there that I really didn't want up for strangers to browse over. I'd put up a few personal details that were for me and friends only -- and I mean friends I really interacted with, not people I knew extremely casually. Orkut is affiliated with a much larger player (Google or Yahoo, I don't remember which now, but someone like that) and they understand that fads change. They actually have a way for you to delete your file.
Does it really delete the file? It was gone the last time I tried to access it, but who knows? In truth, that person was not me -- it was me trying to fit into the parameters of a network game. A game that could be just as depressing and exhausting as high school was -- that game where the rules changed every minute, can you curry favor here, and no matter what you did, it wasn't right?
Jaron Lanier has written a short (and to Zadie Smith, a frightening book) which in turns is apparently both practical and philosophical. I've already requested it from the library, which means I have to kick up the speed of reading Necessary Dreams. Lanier's interest is, how do we "reduce ourselves" to make our computer descriptions more accurate? Smith quotes Lanier: “Information systems,” he writes, “need to have information in order to run, but information under-represents reality” (my italics).
Lanier does not think there is a perfect computer analogue for that creation we call a person.
Well, of course not. I've been writing fiction for a long time, and trying to craft good characters during that time. I know I can do it, because it is part of what people read my works for -- but they are real only to me, because only I can see the shades and glimmers that I may not reveal to the reader, through intent or carelessness. In fact, I realized last night that I excel in dangling bits in front of people -- making them wait -- vaguely confirming or denying information.
Which may lead a current book idea into strange new directions. But in the meantime, I recommend the article as quite possibly worth your time -- and that, in a world spinning faster and faster all the while, may be one of the few things we can actually remain in control of. What is worth our time? I am about to ditch my cable, which may lead to more books, written and read, and sewing again. And savoring the time spent with real people, doing real things -- and making the few purely Internet relationships I have more meaningful.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/25/generation-why/?pagination=false