I have been wondering a good bit lately about the place of social networking and blogs in our current culture. It seems to me that more and more everyone is becoming more self involved. Though I don't really think self involved is the best way to put it. It seems like people feel this weird compulsion to document nearly everything they do in one place or another, as if everything we do is important and some how urgent.
Now I am not arguing against the poetry of day to day life or how beauty can be found in the smallest thing. Far from it. In fact I am not exactly arguing against anything per se. What I am wondering about is whether all of this documentation of every single moment of ones life is really a good thing. I mean see people constantly breaking out their smart phones and checking face book for status updates. Stuff like this has really kind of been an on going problem since mobile communication came along. I call it the, "Always looking for the better party syndrome." In the past you were just out with who you were out with and that was kind of it. I mean you may run into your friends out somewhere and forum a larger group or switch to a different group, but I just believe that had to be more rare then it is now.
I dunno...maybe I am crazy. After what is a blog if not a rambling of my thoughts as if they are important.*
I'll save you the time. They are not important in the slightest
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
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3 comments:
if the question is whether or not it is a good thing, I think the answer is in how you let the constant updating affect you.
there's the obvious issue of wasted productivity when you spend all day on facebook, etc. There is a certain amount of wasted time that takes place here, that could be argued as bad. However, I don't see the real difference between that and any other web surfing, tv watching or sitting at bars.
There are also positive things that can come out of the shared info. Passing news along quickly, inviting people to parties/shows, getting jobs, and of course let's not forget toothing.
Like any technology, it's all about how much you use it as a tool as opposed to how much you let it run your life.
Personally, i just wish removing people from my top 8 still had the same effect it did 2 years ago.
I more meant, will it lead to people becoming more and more self involved, or lead to people being alienated who don't constantly check social networking sites. Stuff like when your our with friends and people saying stuff like, "How do you not know that. It was in my status update." IE technology starting to replace real face to face communication.
Note: this response is ironic in the fact that I am currently talking to safeguy on aim.
or later when it comes up in conversation and other people won't know what we're talking about because they don't read your blog.
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