Categories: consciousness | politics | technology | web 2.0
Wired Up, Plugged In, Zoned Out
As mentioned in my previous post, I haven't been spending a lot of time with the newspaper lately. But I was looking through this past weekend's Globe and Mail, and found the article above (linked from a site that didn't insist on breaking it up into five annoying pages, take note G&M) which I found very interesting.
The article expresses concern about the growing prevalence of "egocasting". This term refers to the way that new technologies allow us to increasingly filter out all views, sources, and voices that don't align with what we've already decided we believe about the world. So lefties tend to subscribe to RSS feeds from lefty news sites, and conservatives do the same. TiVo allows us to select our preferences and never have to flip through anything we aren't interested in. The ads we see online are increasingly tailored. We seek out reflections of ourselves.
In some ways, this is a great thing. We have incredible access to like-minded people, and to information about the things that interest us. Our time is valuable and so tools that help us to filter through the noise are hepful.
But the concern is that we are losing any sense of a common culture, as well as our collective appreciation for the role of differing viewpoints, and constructive debate. Christine Rosen suggests that this trend of egocasting increases polarization in the political spectrum, because people aren't challenged to consider the voices on the other end. And the blogosphere allows us all to reinforce our beliefs, and hang out in our respective "echo chambers".
I think this article is worth a read (and a second link). My sense is that there is a degree of reaction by a traditional journalist to what must seem a threatening wave of change, but there's also a lot to think about.
I want to believe that new technology in communications is going to help us evolve and find new and better means of collaboration and have access to more and broader ideas than ever before. But, as I admitted yesterday, I have been rather dis-engaged this election, and I think it is in part because I am able to fill up all my "news" time with stuff that is interesting to me, and that has nothing to do with the election. If I relied on a traditional newspaper for my news, I would not be able to avoid the coverage and the debate.
Any reactions out there? Fear mongering, or insightful commentary on Consciousness 2.0? I'd love to hear what you think.
I'd agree with you, but...
Tue, 2006-01-17 10:13 — notchcode (not verified)...then I'd just be admitting to only reading like-minded media, right?
I remember way back, in the '90s, some soul saying stuff about this, too, with regard to the internets in general. negroponte, probably. Worth a look in the archives to see how long this meme has been kicking around.
It's also a good reason to not work alone, and to get out every day and interact with the great unwashed, if only to get a tripple caffinated decaff extra frothy something or other.
;)
Another blogger sez...
Wed, 2006-01-18 10:06 — notchcode (not verified)...more on the subject here.
Something I've been thinking about too, not only on the net
Wed, 2006-01-18 21:30 — Christopher (not verified)Sarah, I've been thinking about this for some years. This is a trend that isn't only happening on the internet. We are filtering our social networks, our activities, hobbies, schools, where we live. Anyway we are in the United States. In some way, simply living in Canada is one giant filter unless you are in Vacover or Toronto. I am a devoted contra dancer. This is an outgrowth of square dancing from New England with French-Canadian celtic roots. In the old days (before TV) every town had it's resident fiddler and dance (that's all it was . . . "The Dance" . . . with swing and ragtime and so forth mixed right in with squares, quadrilles, triplets, reels and all the old forms. TV killed most of that and the remnent has morphed into this scene that is based heavily on burning gas to travel much longer distances to leave neighbors behind to go to dances with a regional draw. The dances are much much better, in terms of caliber of dancers and music, but it's the star system at work now. The dance community is a community of interest and passion, now of geography and all the other ties that come with.
Technology drives this trend in many ways. Automobiles and the landscape they create are fundementally alienating. Americans (in the US) have been happy to leave behind public transit, in large part because they didn't really LIKE the experience (I do). Thus advertising themes promoting the "freedom" of drivinng. TV is an individual (and passive) experience, even when you are sitting next to someone. Randomly I stumbled upon a little article on Wired News reacting to a study that said that couples who had TV's in their bedroom have 50% less sex. Now that's something to think about.
And then you have "BRANDING", which in a sense is it's own kind of "technology" in the manner that folks giving empowerment workships like to speak of. Our identity (in the US) is less geography AND less about our own ethnic group. A hundred years ago, it was much harder to belong to the vast amorphus plain of white folk - you were Irish or Italian or Polish or WASP (otherwise known as "native" before "Native American" was acknowleged to exist) or French-Canadian, etc . . . So we've created identities of choice to replace that. Sometimes I think modern fundementalist Christianity (which is indeed a very post-modern creation, theologically and culturally having major differences with dominant Christianity from before TV, autos, etc) - sometimes I think that's just a manufactured identity ("born again") that one can choose in order to put to rest various fears and insecurities of our age. God, I know I'd offend a lot of people by saying that, and I'm well aware that evanglical Christians are inheriters of the spiritual tradition that has norished . . . all of us really, even if we aren't Christian, because we have (in the US, anyway), a culture that comes out of Christianity (like it or not).
Well, that's a grand sweep of the last fifty years! Look what you provoked!
opps
Wed, 2006-01-18 21:33 — Christopher (not verified)Sorry, all my paragraph brakes got stripped out of that previous comment.
C
We've always filtered out the "other"
Sat, 2006-01-21 01:38 — Nick (not verified)I don't think you have to look around very long to see that people have always mostly ignored people who disagree with them. I don't think the internet adds to this. Think about the anti-communist era. Do you think those people were encountering intelligent non-anti-communist views?
I think social networking tools will simply make it easier to share information and culture with friends in a sensible manner, which will mean information and culture will disseminate more organically, through social networks, rather than top-down filtering systems, like newspapers.
And my God, Sarah, where do you find time to do all this reading???