We're a voyeuristic society - aching for the latest celebrity gossip, Facebook updates, Twitter, blogs... we want to know people's secrets. I guess that also makes us an exhibitionist society. We enjoy telling others what we're up to, what we had for breakfast, who we're meeting for coffee later. We enjoy the idea of someone knowing something about us as if we ourselves were celebrities.
I know I'm guilty of it as well. I have a Twitter account, I update my Facebook status (though usually it's just quotes that have caught my fancy rather than "Going out for groceries" "Back with groceries - man, eggs are expensive this week" etc, etc, etc.), I do enjoy watching my flickr photos hits go up... We all want to be loved, want to be impressive, want to be envied by those around us. It's human nature. Keeping up with the Jones' and all that (who are these mythical Jones anyway? They must've been total assholes.). Do we want people to know what we're up to because we want them to want to be us? To have our lives? Is that too cynical? Complete ridiculousness? Somedays I want to think so.
There are those that keep to themselves, I guess. J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, wrote the book in 1951 and gave his last interview in 1980. He published his last novella in 1961 and on the dust jacket, he wrote "It is my rather subversive opinion that a writer's feelings of anonymity-obscurity are the second most valuable property on loan to him during his working years."
In an interview in 1974 he said, "There is a marvelous peace in not publishing... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." I wonder if he ever thought Catcher in the Rye was a huge mistake? Whether he would've taken it all back if he could... He died this past January and all I think of is James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams. Darth Vader does Salinger's demands of privacy from Robin Hood. Ridiculous, huh?
Maybe it's a generational thing. I read an article a couple weeks ago on the fact that kids were becoming more self-centred and less empathetic because of all these web connections. They're more concerned about how they look than the actual connections they're making on Facebook. It's like adding people from high school - you boost your friends number, get to see whether they've succeeded, get to laugh at them when they fail or have gotten massively huge on beer and late-night pizza in university, etc, etc, etc. You're never going to talk to them but you'd like a glimpse into their lives.
Where was I going with all this? Oh yeah, oversaturation and the disconnect. Having all of these technologies at our fingertips to share ourselves with the world seems to make people want to share their innermost thoughts with the world (no problem there) but also makes connections harder. I mean, you update your Twitter with a 140-character summary, you connect that to your Facebook where people who follow you on both get a double whammy of "Making pancakes. Forgot to put in two eggs. Whoops." By the time you get through with that, you're so tired, you don't want to go to blog form because then you'd actually have to flesh out those 140 characters with thoughts, feelings, commentary, etc. If you have a a written journal (pens and paper... whaaaaaat?), you just feel exhausted because you've already shared those thoughts with the world and don't feel like writing it all down again. Phew.
The disconnect? Well, I send and receive way more text messages than I get or make phone calls because it's easier to get to the point with people sometimes. Sometimes you don't feel like talking. Sometimes you don't want to talk to that person and it's easier. Phone calls don't have edits, don't have backspace keys, don't delay things in order to come up with the right response.
We feel disconnected from those around us because we spend so much time creating this image for others to see - an image that is the very best of us so people will love us, be impressed by us, and envy us. But mostly love us.
Because life really just is a PR campaign. :p Don't even get me started on the impact of this on interviews and resumes... sheeeeeet.
Photo of the Day:
Back deckness. Kinda grainy but I didn't want to use the flash and when I went to a lower shutter speed, it wouldn't focus properly. Yarg.
Quote of the day:
"There are things you do because they feel right and they make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and say it was good." - Quote of the day from Storypeople
I think it's only natural to want to be loved. Humans are, after all, a social animal, and all this internet stuff makes us feel like we're part of a community, whether we actually are or not. I've actually met more than a few people who absolutely refuse to use facebook (or refuse to use it's status updates as a log of their thoughts) for the same disconnect that you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, the real joy of facebook is the ability to physically reconnect with people I haven't seen for years. For example, I recently had lunch with an old friend from high school. How we connected and sorted out the details was through facebook. Now it's possible we could have done it without the internet's magic, but it made it so much easier.
Twitter is mostly a lark for me, as I am on there mostly to read up on funny / interesting things people have posted.
As to my own posting rate, well, I must admit I DO enjoy sharing what's going on when I'm doing something interesting. It validates it somehow to share it with people, and the responses I've gotten from my recent travels, it seems that some folks at least are enjoying the updates. I try not to make it too much of a show, and just be who I am, but then I might be failing miserably . . .
In any case, I don't think you should feel bad about being a semi-internet celebrity, but don't let it stop you from making real connections is all.
Cheers,
Cote