An e-mail exchange with a small circle of colleagues about the evolution of the Web and society–we’ve all been deeply involved with the Web since 1995– brought such an interesting exchange yesterday that, with their permission, I’ve moved it here. Given the focus of Read Write History on the use of modern tools to foster interest in and engagement with history and historical artifacts, the discussion about the evolution of the Web, social media, and society is directly relevant (albeit sometimes irreverent).
"Twitter! Down again!"
This is the text of my original e-mail message; the messages that followed appear in the comments below.
“I’ve been amazed for years at people’s amazement at the ongoing changes wrought by the web, and for a year or so by all of the twittering over “social media.”
“It finally hit me: The reason so many are surprised and intrigued and amazed is because it is new to them. They simply don’t think very hard/often/clearly/rigorously about things, so when things happen, even those that are part of clear, long-term trends, it’s new to them.
“Other explanations? (Let’s leave out the motives of those selling books and consulting gigs.)”
Best–
Lee
Tip: It’s the discussion that took place in response, which I’ve moved to the comments below, that’s the interesting part.
6 Comments
My take on the social media uptake is akin to a new trend in exhibitionism. I’m amazed at just how feckless folks are about personal privacy online these days. There’s a new generation of kids who appear completely comfortable with tweets, wall comments and photo tags shared well beyond real life friends.
They have subrogated their actual self to their myspace self and are now living in service of it.
Dorian Grey 2.0
A great quote from Victor Hugo:
“The future has several names:
For the weak, it is the “impossible.” For the fainthearted, it is the “unknown.” For the thoughtful and valiant, it is the “ideal.”
Much of what passes for “news” is compiled by the “fainthearted” from the insights of the “valiant” for consumption by the “weak.” Therefore, I am not surprised that there is so much chasing of ideas and so little actual catching them. Anyone recall ? The Industry Standard?
I would argue that the press fills a market demand — a psychic need that can’t be filled by the knowledge itself, e.g. what good is a copious description of light to a blind man? Nevertheless, the blind man will surely pay handsomely for the impression of understanding.
It’s still about control
People always have and are continuing to profit by sitting in a position where they control the distribution of various media or social shitstreams (news, music, video, press, twitter, etc.) Everyone who’s ever said or believes that they “control x” is doomed to failure. This was true in the mediasphere and now holds true for the new socialnets. But why does everyone think they own something/someone when they just built a lumberyard and gave a few chainsaws to the school kids?
I love chainsaw bear totems as much as the next guy, but at least the facebook nazis aren’t art killers like the mediaverse. The NYTimes editors get to decide what story to kill and what story to run; same with those hip music-label art killers. The social twitterfacebookosaurus let’s us see all our clown vomit especially when we choke on our Skittles.
We’re stuck in our psychology.
The dinosaurs didn’t get to evolve and neither has our psychology in the last 2000 or so years. Live long and prosper ye neurosis. Most people don’t believe it when someone tells them their reality/situation/business has changed drastically, especially when they think they control it. Look at the psychology of hurricane evacuations. True for business in 1995 as much as 2009.
To the old skool web pundits, the web has always been about the social aspect of the hive. It’s just that now the peeps have those chainsaws rather than those 1995 pocketknives to work with, and oh, btw, that caco-phoney of tweets is mostly empty of nature. For some reason, people always feel safe when things stay the samebusiness models notwithstanding–thinking they can just ride it out, rather than face the fact that change is the only constant. The socialnets just appear “new” to everyone’s meatscape because they didn’t pay attention in 1995. Afterall, who likes change? What astounds me even more is that even after a certain change has occurred, some people still can’t accept the reality of the situation.
Look at this news from today: “A middle-aged New Hampshire woman is baffled to be accused of downloading songs like “Jigga My Nigga” using BearShare, and she ignored a host of court papers because she thought they were some kind of scam. True in 1995 and they’re still fighting the change. The first real-time software MP3 player, Winplay3, was released September 9, 1995.
Have you read this yet?
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable”
Interesting piece on the demise of the newspaper.
But the best part about it to me is the notion that just because something is dying doesn’t mean something is there to replace it:
And it is remarkable how long someone can live a lie . . .
Did the horse and buggywhip manufacturers demand an answer of Henry Ford as to what would happen to them?