Exaggeration to make a point. A worthy point, although one I'm not entirely in agreement with. I enjoy the "lifecasts" of others in some respects because otherwise I wouldn't know anything about what they're up to. I'm lucky if I can have a meaningful, real-world conversation with a single-digit handful of folks over the course of a week. Dozens? Hundreds? No way. But if I can see them post a joke or a beautiful photo or just a kvetch about a bad day, I have a connection with them that I simply wouldn't have otherwise. Yes, it can get absurd. Yes, sex check-ins might be in vogue at some point. But we don't have to throw the baby out because the bathwater has gotten quite murky.
(P.S. That came out a bit too hard on the original author. I really enjoyed the read, thanks!)
It's a bold step to say that it's bad for people to cheapen their life experiences. While I personally agree with the author, other people choose to live their life in a way that is meaningful to them, in their own ways. Who am I to say their facebook, foursquare, twitter, etc. interactions are meaningless and without value? These are subjective measurements. The real question is: are people getting value out of these interactions because they are told to get value out of them, and if so, is it done disingenuously? Case in point, a gambling company (or certain gaming companies starting with the letter Z... I kid, I kid) tend to focus on the compulsive nature of humans in a predatory way. This is where true marketing responsibility comes into play: am I creating a system of measurably-destructive behavior in my users? You can measure the detrimental impact of a user's addition, you cannot measure the meaningfulness of a tweet to it's tweeter.
I think the right question to ask is whether the service is improving peoples lives or not. Social networks are useful and improves life in many ways, but their mission is to maximize sharing, user engagement to drive ad revenue, regardless of whether this is good for the users or not.
Yeah, I was going to say, I know of at least one web site with lots of people on it where people do most of this. There is no explicit rating of people though, but there is certainly implicit: you see how many "likes" they get, how many followers, comments, etc. You know who's "good" at your kink and who's new, etc.
In this particular site, it's actually pretty well done. I think that they accomplish a great "this is a useful service for a portion of the population that areinterested in whips and chains" without crossing into "oh wow, this is totally creepy".
That said... I think that the author's overall point re: the desecration of meaningful things by turning them into cheap online experiences is totally valid. I am also depressed by the direction the world is going, and continually contemplating what I can do about it.
Yeah. The attempted cold-read really killed the article for me, both because I didn't agree, and because frankly, having an article seemingly attempt a carny fortune-telling trick on me didn't make me want to read on!
I'm pretty sure the sex-cred and other stuff already exists as well. There are active user-driven communities for swingers and kinky people much as there are for every other specialist hobby/lifestyle.
Such extrapolations rarely come to pass. Yes there might be new crazy services and some people will use them. But will a significant proportion of the population use them often? Will it change the world? Did foursquare? Did Twitter?
No. Some things just stay in their bubbles. There will be new crazed trends that come along and everyone will forget check ins, social networks, gamification and do them.
Reality shows used to be the new thing. So are there run a startup reality shows today? Bitcoins are a new currency. Will people start their own currencies and governments in 15 years? Instead of startups you start governments! Then 3D printers can make military drones and these governments fight each other!
Fortunately most trends just don't get very far. There is a constant stream of new trends to divert people's attention.
Hindsight is 20/20. Motorola invested millions in Iridium, thinking that the new cell phones were just a passing fad, but Nokia managed to flood the mobile market faster than Motorola could put up satellites. It's a case example of project execution failure.
You know what Facebook is to me nowadays? It's another flavor of Gmail. Sometimes I send and receive messages there. It's plumbing. Sometimes I turn the spigot on for some updates, then turn it off and go about my day.
I think pro-social and anti-social pundits are both wrong about the upside and downside of social. Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like Gmail.
I agree - I think users would simply not use it, as many choose to not actively engage in Facebook.
That is not to discount the age issue. Youngsters are conceivably less ready to think of the longer-term consequences of using such a "social network".
Except the part where he uses gmail and facebook exactly the same way, with exactly the same amount of effort, and exactly the same amount of cost, and to exactly the same effect…
Just because you can play Mad-Libs with his sentence to make it seem silly, doesn't mean you are adding anything to the conversation. Social networking is a fun and interesting development, but putting it in the same category as the printing press makes me think you are either greatly undervaluing the printing press, greatly overvaluing social networking, or more likely, both.
I agree to an extent. I think if you look at the average user (generally not someone on HN), you'll see that it is cheapening their experiences. When preteens can quantify how popular they are based on the number of "likes" they get, it is bound to change "social" behavior.
Except FB (well, plus mobile), has managed to change people's behaviors. Your flight is delayed, you are sitting at the airport lounge - and everyone is monkeying with his or her device. No more talking to strangers.
No, Gmail didn't do that - but people still avoided social interaction in those kinds of situations by reading magazines/newspapers/books or playing gameboy, etc.
Admittedly I am not exactly humanity's greatest advocate, but I wouldn't talk to strangers anyway -- I would read. Changing the medium from paper to a screen doesn't really affect that.
gmail is for person-to-person communication.
facebook is more of a person-to-restricted-group communication.
twitter is person-to-public communication.
Each one has its own positive and negative points. Whatever it is, it's not your life and don't treat it as such.
Most any article that says we're moving /toward/ some sort of new technology based sex solution is most likely missing many examples of it having happened well before the author even thought of the topic.
Lesson: Sex is probably smarter and faster than you. (I say this having run a site on sex and technology for near 8 years now. I now accept being constantly comfortably behind the curve.)
I think you missed the point. The author is not trying to make a point about sex, but rather uses that as an example of something he thinks is currently out of scope for social networking fads.
The author doth project their personal insecurities too much. If people want to form a social network around sex (and hell, there's already heaps, adult friend finder and clones, sex forums etc etc) then I think it's fantastic that the internet allows such varied forms of sexual expression and discourse.
I was insulted by the implication that I should be ashamed of sex or of talking about it, or that I'm supposed to consider this lofty magical think that has to be a big secret and people can't be open about.
I'm also guessing that I'm supposed to be 'repulsed' at the hypothetical software, that it might let two men talk to each other too, eh?
Ironically the solution to both are the same. People have different opinions, societies tend to have evolving, and shifting views about social networks or social behavior just like they have about sex in the past. Going around being all judgement of either set of behaviors is not productive.
I thought the sexual lead in to the main point of the article was rather silly myself, we don't disagree there. However, that's no reason to call the author insecure.
It's time to pack in the comments defending the putative purity of the word "irony". I've seen numerous people get up in arms about some incorrect use of the term, followed by them giving the "correct" definition. I'm yet to see two "correct" definitions that match each other. How...
The irony is that you where unaware that you are doing the very thing you are accusing someone else of doing. te_chris assumed that the author was projecting his insecurities, you assumed that te_chris was trying to look clever. ...and then downvoted for it.
You're objecting to paraphrasing a quote from Shakespeare? I generally don't think people are trying to show off when they're referring to something that's in as many high school curriculums as Hamlet...
And it's a quote that provides a nice succinct way to convey a certain meaning, that I'm not sure I disagree with in this case.
I actually missed the Hamlet reference to be honest. Now it seems much less obnoxious. Thanks for clearing that up. My apologies to the parent for that portion of my comment.
This is pretty much Jaron Lanier's argument in You Are Not a Gadget (reviewed here: http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-you-are-no... ). They both have a point; systems which reduce human relations to very simpleminded database formalisms cheapen them.
But they ignore that the human spirit is (or so we should hope) strong enough to survive Facebook if it is strong enough to survive the other insults and depredations it has been subject to throughout history. Facebook may slap a reductive meaning onto the word "friend", but I haven't noticed that truly interfering with real friendship.
Jaron Lanier is a cynical charlatan. It takes a pretty negative worldview to say that the relationships people have on Facebook are the sum total of the nature of human relations, that the entire social phenomenon is a lowest-common denominator operation. The human spirit doesn't have to be strong enough, even without hope. "Facebook killing the human spirit" is an instance of a phenomenon that has never happened.
I've noticed an interesting pattern among some people I encountered. Usually the ratio of activity on facebook (not just "sharing", but also instant messaging and status updates) is inversely proportional to their social activity in reality. Exceptions aside, it seems facebook always has been and always will be to large part a substitute for social activities/interactions in reality, which we would have liked to happen but couldn't make happen, whether it's because of social anxiety, shyness or geographical distances. people with richer social lifes need to cater to these needs less, whereas people with fewer real life social activities resort to facebook to get their fix.
It's especially problematic since Facebook's newsfeed algorithm seems to promote posts by exactly those who interact with me a lot on Facebook, which is correlated with living on Facebook a lot, which is (as you said) correlated with how much real life they have to talk about! Missing out on my acquaintances' big life events is one reason I've been experimenting with http://WikiSapien.com/
interesting project - is it yours (judging by your username)? and if so, how's it any different from facebook? do you put more intimate information on it and befriend less people?
It's different in that it's not a social network: I don't want friending, I don't want engagement, Facebook also does personal communication in a great way. I just want it to be a good source of basic information on who someone is; answer their question and get them on their way. Another difference is that (partially due to optimizing for engagement) elsewhere it is easy to find someone's most recent actions, but it's also easy to miss out on bigger long term things. I dont want it to be chronologically sorted in such an extreme way. As I say: find out who someone is, and not just what they had for lunch.
For me, commenting on the sex angle in the article misses the point. The author was kind enough to put the relevant text in bold, specifically 'cheapens the experience of something very important'.
I'd argue that this is already happening with something very important, our human friendships. Facebook and sites of its ilk encourage us to build shallow relationships with many and fool ourselves into thinking we're sharing something of merit.
I believe in personal responsibility, so I'm not saying Facebook, Twitter, etc... are forced upon people, we can choose to leave them alone if we see fit and plenty of people do just that. It's our job to fit technology around our own wants and needs, not be led by technology.
Anyway, interesting article, thank you to the author.
Facebook tries to monetize the difficulty of letting relationships go. I realize this, so I don't accept friend requests from former friends/acquaintances. You're only my friend on Facebook if we're actually friends. I have 15 Facebook friends, and I care about all of them.
As someone with hundreds of 'friends', I'm curious about how you use the site differently than me. How often do you log in? Do you participate every time you log in? Do you have a group chat with all your friends?
And how weird is it to have all the activity from your friends' posts elsewhere (comments/likes on public posts) in your news feed? It would seem like if your friends did it as much as my friends do, you'd see more strangers on facebook than friends.
I get on a few times a day for a few minutes at a time, but I'll stay on for 20-30 minutes if I'm having a good chat with someone. I've found that most of my friends prefer to text.
If I don't see anything new in my feed, I don't stick around.
There will always be those who proclaim outrage and lament change.
Change always causes loss, but we often gain more. Naysayers may help us keep track of what is lost, but best to ignore them otherwise.
Because of agriculture, we don't know how to hunt and gather. Because of home theaters we don't go to the movies. Because of air flights we are separated from our families and miss much of what we fly over.
I absolutely loved (and was repulsed by the reality of) this segment: "Our daily existence transformed into database entries in some NoSQL database on some spinning disk in some rack in suburban Virginia."
Imagine the horror when you find out all the worldly financial assets you've accrued over your entire life are just a few database entries dispersed over a few databases on some spinning disk in some rack in some datacenter somewhere?
>You were repulsed by the above description of this imaginary site.
Thanks, I was not aware that I found that hypothetical sight repulsive. What I do find repulsive is the idea that I should repulsed by something which "utterly and absolutely cheapens the experience of something very important", When I am not the one who determined that the 'thing' in question is very important.
What you described in your imaginary site sounds like a product for people wishing to engage in casual sex. It provides a service to record previous partners, and presumably help find new ones. It also provides a service as a background check for partners by showing you reviews from others they were with, as well as "heads up"s. Planned support for Geotags, which seems good as sex tends to be a geographically bound activity (in-airplane geo-tags seem unnecessary though).
If I want to link the physical act of sex, which I do for physical pleasure, with the emotional experience of a strong, personal relationship, than I would probably not use a service designed around the premise that I would be having sex casually, with many partners. But why should I want to make that connection?
Notably, a lower-tech version of this social dynamic (particular the sexual version) appeared in a high school in California this year[1]. We think of these things as incredibly immature and disrespectful, but it appears that they happen anyway.
These stories are perennial in the media. They are inevitably exaggerated or outright fake. Remember, their sources are kids who are bored and want to be on TV.
relax mate. I don't think the majority of humanity is so dumb enough to be bought into the whole social hype, each time someone creates another "Facebook for ABC" online. Sure, it doesn't help when senseless media and VCs hype it up even more so, but most of us don't really buy into it. FB, Twitter etc should be just natural extensions to our real social life (plus a little bit more). Taking things too far as you did on your blog assumes that we'll just buy ourselves into these crap.
It's all a matter of perspective, e.g an accurate sexual behavior network would be of tremendous value to epidemiologists and public health practitioners, not to mention when people need to notify former partners about disease diagnoses.
The core argument here appears to be the "cheapening" of experience driven by "social", without any acknowledgement that social also enables new experiences. Sure, facebook has cheapened the value of remembering a friend's birthday, but it has also enabled more immediate involvement with friend's who you don't get to see that often (geography, parenting, loner-ism, etc).
"Social" changes all kinds of things. It's consequences are far-reaching, and we're just barely starting to figure them out. The advent of the automobile "cheapened" travel experiences, but also made travel accessible to the masses, not to mention a slew of modern conveniences. As a society we're still trying to find the right balance for how we use cars (greenhouse gases, near-surface pollution, exurban isolation, etc). People who write "cars are ruining society" essays don't actually contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way. To be dismissive of all things social based on such a small sample of human experience feels short-sighted (and out of place in a technology-oriented discussion community).
Aside: The closing reference to Philip Larkin is amusing, as he was a racist and misogynist. He decried the "backward" steps post-WWII society was taking with regards civil rights.
That which is shallow but useful can have its legitimate place in life, though it lacks character: a daily commute on the freeway might suck, and might not match the joy and invigoration of a brisk walk on a beautiful day, but it has its place if you need to get to work miles away and if your area lacks public transportation to get you there efficiently; living in the suburbs might suck compared to the excitement of an upscale urban environment but millions of people manage just fine with the tradeoffs that suburban living entails and get by just fine without the excitement; so too social networking sucks when compared to any one of countless ways of interacting that are intimate, personal, intellectually stimulating, or whatever, and for which the strictures of the social network have no room, but all sorts of people nonetheless get by very well interacting at the social networking level for the utilitarian goals for which they use such services, not caring one whit about intimacy or other elements that make the experience a fundamentally shallow one.
Social may be shallow but it has its place and, as long as we have freedom, you can use it or not according to taste. One can find fault with it but that does not mean it has a "horrible future." Criticism of this sort is thus misplaced, in my view, in spite of the limitations of the venue.
I think that the bigger problem is when people begin using "social networking" while they are actually doing the intimate, stimulating, exciting things in real life - either looking for validation or because its easier to bury your head in your phone than it is to participate in social interactions.
For example, checking Facebook while out at dinner with friends, or uploading photos of a party while you are at the party. What could possibly be happening on the internet that is more important than being out with friends?
Fair enough if you want to check facebook while you are waiting on a train killing time, but when you are actually doing the things you hope to be reading about on Facebook/Twitter/Intagram, something seems very wrong.
I was watching some video the other day where Jon Stewart made a random appearance. All the people around him had their phones out taking pictures of him instead of actually experiencing him being there. It was like proving to other people that they'd had an awesome experience was more important than actually having that experience. Or like they were going through life as tourists, making sure they checked every box and shared it all with other people to make them jealous. "Been within five feet of a major celebrity - check".
I don't think this is new to cellphones / mobile culture. I've known plenty of people who would spend all their time at parties and social events taking endless pictures, then spend hours showing them to everyone they knew afterwards. Like they were more focused on getting proof that they were having fun and socializing than just enjoying themselves.
The compulsion to be a tourist is ever-present in our lives. Social networks just move the reward of validation for tourism up to the near-instant. One of my favorite books has a significant character plot that explores the (sometimes ridiculous) role of being a tourist.
"Twoflower stared raptly at the display overhead. He probably had the best view of anyone on the Disc. Then a terrible thought occurred to him. 'Where's the picture box?' he asked urgently. 'What?' said Rincewind, eyes fixed on the sky. 'The picture box,' said Twoflower. 'I must get a picture of this!'" (Color of Magic, 1983)
Isn't it kind of cynical to assume the reason they are taking a picture is because they want to brag about it to their friends? I have I'm guessing 10-20k pictures I've taken in the last 12 years. I've taking probably > 1k pictures with my phone this year. I've shared less than 2% of them.
I happen to enjoy looking back at all these photos. They bring back memories of various events in my life. IMO, memories I'd likely not think of without something (like a photo) to trigger the memory.
Take more pictures not less.
Also I don't see a problem with sharing. It's not a substitute for face to face time but it's connecting with people MORE not less. Go back 25 years and you could rarely connected with anyone unless you were with them. Now you can connect all the time by sharing your experiences. Some people do it brag, most do it to share and connect. At least in my experience.
> Also I don't see a problem with sharing. It's not a substitute for face to face time but it's connecting with people MORE not less. Go back 25 years and you could rarely connected with anyone unless you were with them. Now you can connect all the time by sharing your experiences. Some people do it brag, most do it to share and connect. At least in my experience.
The problem could be exactly that you don't see any problem.
"Connecting all the time" isn't a positive thing; just a few days ago there it's been posted the "Culture of distraction" article.
Also, why assuming that "sharing experiences" is positive? Assuming that "the Facebook way" is the standard in today's experience sharing, most of the "experiences" are banal almost-everyday happenings.
The problem is cultural and it's subtle, although I think it's way more complex than a dualistic living something vs. being and audience of it.
I don't disagree that people are not doing it to brag but perhaps as someone else mentioned the memory that has been captured is now not as fulfilling or vivid or "memorable" as it should have been if the phone wasn't such a distraction.
Going back 25 years, I think you'll find that people rarely connected in as wide of a network but the circle of friends they did connect with was possibly on a much more fulfilling and deeper level and they got significantly more out of it than a shallow network of thousands of "friends".
I too feel that it's easier than ever to connect with friends on Facebook but somehow the convenience has also made the friendship feel more superficial. Whereas before I had to make an effort to write a birthday card or give someone a call, today, I simply click and write "have a great birthday". Engaging with Facebook has almost become like tending a farm in Farmville, I see alerts, I do routine actions that keep up the appearances of being "social" and that's it. It's sad that I think back now and I don't even remember how my friends sound because we interact in person and on the phone so much less.
I think I can top that. I saw a photo in a newspaper a few years ago with the Dalai Lama walking through a crowd. People were reaching out to shake hands with him and he was shaking hands with one girl in the crowd who, rather than looking at him was looking at the screen of the phone she was using to take a photo of him shaking her hand.
This is especially annoying at live events like concerts when the person in front of you is holding up a smartphone to record the concert and they're watching it on the tiny screen instead of focusing on the person standing in front of them. I'm completely distracted by their recording and yet at the same time I feel immense pity for them.
That's like saying gambling is a fad. The novel implementations may change but integrating markers for performance will only come more common in time. Expect to be able to passively track how long you brushed your teeth in the near future.
> Expect to be able to passively track how long you brushed your teeth in the near future.
I guess "passively" is the key. This sort of action-specific data capture has to be implemented in a way that you don't have to intervene to record and process it. The law of diminishing returns will cull anything of marginal utility if it can't carry its own weight (effort in > value out).
Arguably these features provide no value already though but only exist because on some level they are fueled by addiction. It always begins with very little effort and a shitton of perceived value. First time using a drug - little hit, big high. The first day in Farmville, WoW, etc all has this exactly the same. You gain multiple levels, achievements, etc. all in a few hours. This is fun you say. I don't need to do this, but if it's so easy, why wouldn't I? You begin doing it more and more. Just like physical drugs, you build up a tolerance. Those achievements that used to get you excited - don't anymore. 100g? Fuck that, you now want 100000g. You need that feeling of accomplishment but it's seldom found. For each higher tier you reach or better gear you find - there is always something better that is exponentially harder to get. Your addiction has changed your perception of what value is. What you once did recreationally for fun, is now an all day activity where you are mostly unhappy. People have been treated alongside drug addicts for game addiction. As we discover more compelling hooks - active gamification is only going to be more prevalent. The future of course is in passive metrics - sticking chips in things that don't normally have them.
Self timing toothbrushes are already a thing. I'm sure one that posts it to facebook can't be that far behind (pretty sure there's a market for that actually). I think the real money is in tracking how long people's children brush their teeth though.
You're thinking only about the end user - what I'm talking about is more encompassing than that. Toothbrush companies want metrics around their product. Users are going to soon be faced with a choice to either purchase a smart product that measures these metrics or buy the old cheaper one that doesn't. The way I expect mass adoption to occur is from the possibility of selling this data and passing off a percentage to the users. Your toothbrush will reward you for brushing your teeth not just with a nice sound or trivial leaderboard but by real world products, discounts, etc. If you always brush your teeth, you get notified that you can get your next toothbrush 40% off. The company will be able to do that because you gave them far more money with the data you provided them which they could sell to toothpaste companies, dentists, researchers, candy companies, etc There's a lot of parties who might be interested and this is hardly the best example.
I don't doubt that will be attempted, but it's ridiculous from every angle. If such things are remotely reasonable, then everyone with a product will be trying to do it. You'll be inundated with "real world products, discounts, etc" from everything you touch. You'll end up rejecting the entire system flat out just to escape.
This is the same reason location-based offers won't work either - because everyone will be trying to give you an offer, and they'll try to SEO-game the system so that categories and personalization don't work as filters.
It's cool that my calendar has reminders, right? But I have five devices that all remind me of the same event, all at once and I end up turning off reminders whole-hog because I'm tired of configuring every single scenario and every single device. Sync is great right up until I hate it more than anything and death would be sweet release.
I make use of social networks to stay in touch with old friends and extended family that I would have difficulty staying in touch with otherwise. This is indeed shallow in comparison with my relationship with my immediate family or current close friends, but I value this shallow connection along with the deeper connections in my life.
158 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] threadNo really, no. Everything described already exists (except the sex-cred, and the geo-tagging is rather manual); simply not on the open internet.
In this particular site, it's actually pretty well done. I think that they accomplish a great "this is a useful service for a portion of the population that areinterested in whips and chains" without crossing into "oh wow, this is totally creepy".
That said... I think that the author's overall point re: the desecration of meaningful things by turning them into cheap online experiences is totally valid. I am also depressed by the direction the world is going, and continually contemplating what I can do about it.
He's giving the Internet more credit than it deserves.
Such extrapolations rarely come to pass. Yes there might be new crazy services and some people will use them. But will a significant proportion of the population use them often? Will it change the world? Did foursquare? Did Twitter?
No. Some things just stay in their bubbles. There will be new crazed trends that come along and everyone will forget check ins, social networks, gamification and do them.
Reality shows used to be the new thing. So are there run a startup reality shows today? Bitcoins are a new currency. Will people start their own currencies and governments in 15 years? Instead of startups you start governments! Then 3D printers can make military drones and these governments fight each other!
Fortunately most trends just don't get very far. There is a constant stream of new trends to divert people's attention.
That said, Sex.ly probably won't take off :)
You know what Facebook is to me nowadays? It's another flavor of Gmail. Sometimes I send and receive messages there. It's plumbing. Sometimes I turn the spigot on for some updates, then turn it off and go about my day.
I think pro-social and anti-social pundits are both wrong about the upside and downside of social. Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like Gmail.
That is not to discount the age issue. Youngsters are conceivably less ready to think of the longer-term consequences of using such a "social network".
But still. Plumbing.
The printing press is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like hand-copied books.
Gmail hasn't done that.
gmail is for person-to-person communication. facebook is more of a person-to-restricted-group communication. twitter is person-to-public communication.
Each one has its own positive and negative points. Whatever it is, it's not your life and don't treat it as such.
http://bedposted.com/ http://ijustmadelove.com
Lesson: Sex is probably smarter and faster than you. (I say this having run a site on sex and technology for near 8 years now. I now accept being constantly comfortably behind the curve.)
That said, it's easy to miss the forest when you're being whacked over the head with the trees.
I'm also guessing that I'm supposed to be 'repulsed' at the hypothetical software, that it might let two men talk to each other too, eh?
Ironically the solution to both are the same. People have different opinions, societies tend to have evolving, and shifting views about social networks or social behavior just like they have about sex in the past. Going around being all judgement of either set of behaviors is not productive.
... ironic.
And it's a quote that provides a nice succinct way to convey a certain meaning, that I'm not sure I disagree with in this case.
But they ignore that the human spirit is (or so we should hope) strong enough to survive Facebook if it is strong enough to survive the other insults and depredations it has been subject to throughout history. Facebook may slap a reductive meaning onto the word "friend", but I haven't noticed that truly interfering with real friendship.
I'd argue that this is already happening with something very important, our human friendships. Facebook and sites of its ilk encourage us to build shallow relationships with many and fool ourselves into thinking we're sharing something of merit.
I believe in personal responsibility, so I'm not saying Facebook, Twitter, etc... are forced upon people, we can choose to leave them alone if we see fit and plenty of people do just that. It's our job to fit technology around our own wants and needs, not be led by technology.
Anyway, interesting article, thank you to the author.
And how weird is it to have all the activity from your friends' posts elsewhere (comments/likes on public posts) in your news feed? It would seem like if your friends did it as much as my friends do, you'd see more strangers on facebook than friends.
If I don't see anything new in my feed, I don't stick around.
Change always causes loss, but we often gain more. Naysayers may help us keep track of what is lost, but best to ignore them otherwise.
Because of agriculture, we don't know how to hunt and gather. Because of home theaters we don't go to the movies. Because of air flights we are separated from our families and miss much of what we fly over.
Indeed. The sky is falling.
Thanks, I was not aware that I found that hypothetical sight repulsive. What I do find repulsive is the idea that I should repulsed by something which "utterly and absolutely cheapens the experience of something very important", When I am not the one who determined that the 'thing' in question is very important.
What you described in your imaginary site sounds like a product for people wishing to engage in casual sex. It provides a service to record previous partners, and presumably help find new ones. It also provides a service as a background check for partners by showing you reviews from others they were with, as well as "heads up"s. Planned support for Geotags, which seems good as sex tends to be a geographically bound activity (in-airplane geo-tags seem unnecessary though).
If I want to link the physical act of sex, which I do for physical pleasure, with the emotional experience of a strong, personal relationship, than I would probably not use a service designed around the premise that I would be having sex casually, with many partners. But why should I want to make that connection?
[1]http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50133713n
Just one gripe. He forgot the 'like' button.
The core argument here appears to be the "cheapening" of experience driven by "social", without any acknowledgement that social also enables new experiences. Sure, facebook has cheapened the value of remembering a friend's birthday, but it has also enabled more immediate involvement with friend's who you don't get to see that often (geography, parenting, loner-ism, etc).
"Social" changes all kinds of things. It's consequences are far-reaching, and we're just barely starting to figure them out. The advent of the automobile "cheapened" travel experiences, but also made travel accessible to the masses, not to mention a slew of modern conveniences. As a society we're still trying to find the right balance for how we use cars (greenhouse gases, near-surface pollution, exurban isolation, etc). People who write "cars are ruining society" essays don't actually contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way. To be dismissive of all things social based on such a small sample of human experience feels short-sighted (and out of place in a technology-oriented discussion community).
Aside: The closing reference to Philip Larkin is amusing, as he was a racist and misogynist. He decried the "backward" steps post-WWII society was taking with regards civil rights.
Social may be shallow but it has its place and, as long as we have freedom, you can use it or not according to taste. One can find fault with it but that does not mean it has a "horrible future." Criticism of this sort is thus misplaced, in my view, in spite of the limitations of the venue.
For example, checking Facebook while out at dinner with friends, or uploading photos of a party while you are at the party. What could possibly be happening on the internet that is more important than being out with friends?
Fair enough if you want to check facebook while you are waiting on a train killing time, but when you are actually doing the things you hope to be reading about on Facebook/Twitter/Intagram, something seems very wrong.
"Twoflower stared raptly at the display overhead. He probably had the best view of anyone on the Disc. Then a terrible thought occurred to him. 'Where's the picture box?' he asked urgently. 'What?' said Rincewind, eyes fixed on the sky. 'The picture box,' said Twoflower. 'I must get a picture of this!'" (Color of Magic, 1983)
I happen to enjoy looking back at all these photos. They bring back memories of various events in my life. IMO, memories I'd likely not think of without something (like a photo) to trigger the memory.
Take more pictures not less.
Also I don't see a problem with sharing. It's not a substitute for face to face time but it's connecting with people MORE not less. Go back 25 years and you could rarely connected with anyone unless you were with them. Now you can connect all the time by sharing your experiences. Some people do it brag, most do it to share and connect. At least in my experience.
The problem could be exactly that you don't see any problem.
"Connecting all the time" isn't a positive thing; just a few days ago there it's been posted the "Culture of distraction" article.
Also, why assuming that "sharing experiences" is positive? Assuming that "the Facebook way" is the standard in today's experience sharing, most of the "experiences" are banal almost-everyday happenings.
The problem is cultural and it's subtle, although I think it's way more complex than a dualistic living something vs. being and audience of it.
Going back 25 years, I think you'll find that people rarely connected in as wide of a network but the circle of friends they did connect with was possibly on a much more fulfilling and deeper level and they got significantly more out of it than a shallow network of thousands of "friends".
I too feel that it's easier than ever to connect with friends on Facebook but somehow the convenience has also made the friendship feel more superficial. Whereas before I had to make an effort to write a birthday card or give someone a call, today, I simply click and write "have a great birthday". Engaging with Facebook has almost become like tending a farm in Farmville, I see alerts, I do routine actions that keep up the appearances of being "social" and that's it. It's sad that I think back now and I don't even remember how my friends sound because we interact in person and on the phone so much less.
I guess "passively" is the key. This sort of action-specific data capture has to be implemented in a way that you don't have to intervene to record and process it. The law of diminishing returns will cull anything of marginal utility if it can't carry its own weight (effort in > value out).
This is the same reason location-based offers won't work either - because everyone will be trying to give you an offer, and they'll try to SEO-game the system so that categories and personalization don't work as filters.
It's cool that my calendar has reminders, right? But I have five devices that all remind me of the same event, all at once and I end up turning off reminders whole-hog because I'm tired of configuring every single scenario and every single device. Sync is great right up until I hate it more than anything and death would be sweet release.
I make use of social networks to stay in touch with old friends and extended family that I would have difficulty staying in touch with otherwise. This is indeed shallow in comparison with my relationship with my immediate family or current close friends, but I value this shallow connection along with the deeper connections in my life.