Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, these are the ones that are hot now. Before them there were Ringo and Multiply. There are plenty more I don't remember or don't know about. And sites that were created for more limited purposes, such as Yahoo Instant Messenger, auction sites, blog providers, are subtly, but surely, being converted to look more like their social networking peers. One of the local news channels will be airing a report on the evening news about how texting has contributed to a rise in automobile accidents. New elbow and shoulder injuries are popping up due to excessive cell phone use. Have we lost our minds? Doesn't anyone crave just one moment of solace anymore?
I know what you're thinking. Isn't Hervey just as guilty as the rest by virtue of maintaining the Blog and by his very posting of this message? Actually, I think you have hit on something.
If I were writing this for publication in a traditional print newspaper, I doubt that anyone would confuse what I was doing with social networking in the modern sense (although an argument could be made for that). So what is the difference when I write it for a blog? The answer is interactivity. When media becomes interactive, it invites participation. This is probably what has set the Yellow Springs News apart from other print newspapers for many years. Even though it is a hard-copy news source that comes out only once a week, it invites, and gets, reader participation with its community forum (formerly known as letters to the editor). The News, it seems, invented social networking long before the Internet.
Look at any of the online news outlets that allow for reader comments. The inevitable responses to even the most innocuous of stories are mind-boggling. Those posting comments frequently address one another argumentatively. I guess that while I am lamenting the loss of anonymity, privacy, and civility that has come with our ubiquitous electronic media, I have to admit that I am doing my share of enabling. I have to add here that I am extremely grateful for the way the Blog's readers have been respectful of the fact that I have chosen not to moderate reader comments and allow anonymous posting.
It's hard to escape it. Every time I open my Yahoo email, I am greeted with the gleeful announcement that those in my address book with Yahoo accounts can now tell that I am online and we are free to send each other instant messages. I constantly get email messages from people I barely know, asking me to be their friend on sites I have never heard of. Do they really want to be my friend? Or did some piece of software somewhere out in the ether go through their email addresses and decide to buddy them up with every name it found. How should I respond? I don't want to seem unfriendly. If I should forget to shut down Skype after Amy has been talking to her sister in Malaysia, I might later return to the computer to find instant messages from women I do not know, who want me to view them live on x-rated websites. Is this stuff permanently stored on my hard drive, I wonder. What if the FBI were to find this..? How would I explain?
What if I want to be an old poop and not network? What if I long to be a Garbo? Being a luddite (a nod to Ralph Keyes here) is probably the only answer. Call it the firewall of ludditism, if you will. Shut off your cell phone; turn off your computer; lock yourself in a room with no TV (Yes, even they have gotten into the interactive act, encouraging readers to report news and send photos and videos via their websites.) and just be alone. It could be very refreshing.
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2 comments:
I rather like fb, it is like a fridge with people leaving notes. It is a way for me to keep up with family, friends, acquaintances I like and fellow artists.
As for anonymity online, I think those who abuse it to be rude are the same types that used to send nasty anon letters or make nasty phone calls (until caller id did away with that). So I don't think human nature has changed too much, just the technology.
But hey if you don't want to join fb and know about my recent spider bites, or see my new hair cut poo to you ;) I will just come here and tell ya.
I really really do like to hang out w/ myself. I was an only child, and my husband and I have no children.
I won't do social networking sites because I really don't want people to know that much about me. There's nothing wrong w/ that.
I keep up w/ friends by seeing them, emailing them, or talking to them on the phone.
Being alone is the only way I can recharge my batteries. I'm a high school English teacher, and summer is the high point of my year.
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