
The Unbearable Triviality Of Social Networking - itg
http://blogs.forbes.com/rogerkay/2011/04/18/the-unbearable-triviality-of-social-networking/
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jdietrich
Existential crisis alert: as more and more of our lives are conducted in the
"unreal" world of social networking, we will increasingly start to question
the nature of our "real" lives.

I think that a lot of the backlash against social networking is the product of
cognitive dissonance; Specifically that Facebook so efficiently reveals our
significance (or otherwise) in the wider world. Facebook is perhaps the first
technology that reveals to us that the major events in our own lives are, on
the macro scale, merely background noise. Learning of an old friend giving
birth seems very much less significant when we learn of it not through direct
communication but through a wall post that is read by 600 other "friends".

Space travel gave us the ability to see our own world from afar, revealing to
us the fragility of our world and the insignificance of human existence when
seen from a cosmic scale. Many astronauts describe being profoundly changed by
seeing the "blue marble" for themselves.

Perhaps these vertiginous experiences, these sudden shifts in perspective will
occur more frequently with the advance of technology. Perhaps the opposite
will occur and with the decline in mass media we will become increasingly
insular and narcissistic. Perhaps our reaction to being able to see the sum of
all human life will be to shield our eyes from it. We live in interesting
times.

~~~
pessimizer
I don't relate to this. I finally pulled out of social networking altogether
based on the fact that it made everything too significant, not too
insignificant. Most of what is posted on twitter or on facebook walls would
normally be kept to one's self; it was already insignificant. Now people are
commenting on, debating, and retweeting stuff that might have been worth
mentioning while trying to make conversation over lunch, but certainly not
worth calling anybody to tell.

Note that I post this as a comment on a comment of a news-aggregating site's
comment thread on a blog (at least I'm hoping it's a blog and not a print
column) hosted by website of the print magazine Forbes written by a columnist
who wrote an essay debating the significance of a tweet (or class of personal
emissions of which this tweet was representive) written by a guy who decided
to delete 100 of his 300 apps.

Over lunch, mentioning that you just deleted 100 of the 300 apps on your
iphone might be a spark for a good five minutes of conversation. On the
internet, it sparks existential crises all over the world.

EDIT: I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well here. I really, deeply,
truly, honestly don't want to know that Scoble deleted 100 of his apps. I can
also wait up to two years before finding out whether old friends have had
children without losing any of the "oh, that's nice" feeling that I'll have
upon hearing it. Facebook and Twitter seem to addict people to a stream of
trivialities that wouldn't be worth turning over for in isolation. It might
have to do with the fact that an orgasm is made up of x number of rubs.

~~~
aaronmarks
There are definitely two conflicting forces at work here - social networking
making every action seem both insignificant (in comparison to the barrage of
updates we receive every day) while also making almost every event quite
significant (Hundreds of comments, comments on comments, etc). But one force
might not necessarily prevail over the other - they can work it tandem,
leading to interesting results.

One issue with jdietrich's initial comment is that his views on social
networking revealing our true insignificance assume that the selves we display
in the "unreal" world of social networking are, in fact, accurate
representations of our "real world" selves; in reality, this is hardly the
case. I know I've caught myself thinking "How will this Tweet or that FB
update make me look to my friends/followers..." - hardly a parallel of how one
lives and presents themselves in the unpredictable, variable real world.

This, in my mind, is the product of the conflicting forces of exaggerated
significance / insignificance - the intense crafting of our online
personalities. We've seen the blue marble - have realized that with all of the
white noise, we must seem better, funnier, more interesting, to break through
the noise. Yet at the same time we know that, should we actually get noticed,
we will get noticed in a serious way - hundreds or thousands of people might
see our update. The pressure is on.

As I see it, this is the product of these two conflicting forces: A high-
pressure culture, a culture of scrutiny wherein every action and sentence is
specifically crafted and cultivated. Orwell's 1984 comes to mind, but rather
than Big Brother watching over everyone, it is the public that constantly
watches each other.

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timwiseman
Yes, what you find on social networks is frequently trivial. For that matter,
what most people talk about at family reunions is mostly trivial and what most
people talk about at the local bar is even more trivial.

Also, yes, you can overuse social networks just as it is easy to overuse the
local bar.

Used in moderation though, social networks, facebook in particular, have
helped me keep in touch with many of my more distant relations that I
otherwise would likely see and talk to only at weddings and funerals. It has
helped me reconnect with friends from high school and college that I probably
would have forgotten about.

Overall, I have found that, used in moderation, social networks and Facebook
in particular have helped to enrish my social life and help me keep in touch
with people that matter to me, and if the price of that is dealing with some
triviality, I will pay it gladly.

~~~
jerf
Another perspective on the same basic point: The average neural message
transmitted in your brain is trivial. What arises from the sum total of those
messages is not. But there is probably no way to get to human-scale cognition
without a lot of triviality at lower layers. There's probably no way to have a
civil human society without these "trivialities", and if that is true, are
they _really_ trivial interactions?

Declarations of triviality encode an embedded value scheme that may or may not
have actual utility for any purpose. I hesitate to label things "trivial"; it
may be missing the forest for the trivial leaves.

I don't do Facebook for various reasons, but I don't look down on those who do
use it.

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ubercore
Calling out social networking for being trivial is a bad analysis of what
social networking is all about. Your social networking experience is defined
by your friends and what you choose to socialize about. Scoble is socializing
about mobile apps, and technology. I'm sure he has a whole raft of very
insightful posts, balanced by more mundane ones like the example in the
article.

In my experience, some friends post consistently interesting and thought
provoking links and paragraphs. Others post about their coffee habits. That
mirrors my "real life" experience of interacting with them. Why is there this
expectation that online socializing should be inherently more profound than
real life socializing?

~~~
raganwald
I agree with your basic sentiment that social networking is driven by the
tenor and tone of your real life friendships and interests. However, it
differs from real-world socializing in that it is a broadcast model rather
than a conversation model. When you and I meet for coffee, the cost of telling
you about my new 19t Surly steel cog is, shall we say, two minutes. We only
have so much time for coffee, and I ought to spend half of it listening to
you, so am I going to decide that the cog is worth two minutes of our limited
time to tell only one person about it?

But online, I appear to have unlimited time to broadcast what I want to say.
If I spend two minutes on the cog, it takes away from two minutes of the Real
World, but it doesn't appear to take away from our limited time together, and
I blast it out to all my friends, some of whom may care.

I believe this gives me an incentive to talk about fairly trivial stuff that
doesn't exist in the face-to-face world.

~~~
wyclif
I had to google "Surly steel cog."

~~~
bhousel
That's actually another advantage of online interaction. In real life, you
wouldn't be able to google something mid-conversation, so you'd basically need
to sidetrack the conversation to be brought up to speed.

~~~
mbreese
Or disadvantage. It's far easier to ask what a Surley steel cog is than to
force a cognitive break to go look something up. You'll probably get a better
answer too.

And you can also avoid the inevitable 30 minute trek through Wikipedia as you
get distracted and end up looking at what other types of cogs you've been
missing out on. And don't even start looking at sprokets.

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pmikesell
Overheard at the bar:

Person: "Greg, if you're not on facebook you're missing like 50% of world".
Greg: "Is there some way that I could miss 75%?"

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RogerKay
Guys, thank you for your comments. I appreciate your understanding. Please
note, however, that there is some irony in the piece, aside from the
seriousness rightly accorded to the incident of the inattentive mother.

~~~
izendejas
Your post will definitely get a lot of attention. I'm sure you know that. It's
a good discussion we need to have. However, I think you could have used a
little less irony and a lot more balance if you really wanted to get something
across besides a rant.

Ultimately, one person's "triviality" is another's passion. The problem with
social networking isn't it's triviality. It's that to consume what's important
to us, we have to find it through all the "noise"--whatever that may mean to
each individual. It used to be that we didn't have this problem because when
two people meet, or a group for that matter, they immediately find a middle
ground and talk about what's important to all. Such context breaks down when
we broadcast information online.

This problem I feel will be solved in the years to come. Disclaimer: I'm
working on it.

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guinaps
One of the biggest dilemmas in this industry I keep thinking about is: if I'm
the creator of a platform for an unprecedented, and potentially addictive,
online social experience, should I care if people overuse my product and try
to educate them somehow, or should I keep coming up with incentives to make
them use it more and more?

In other words, does the user own the entire responsibility for the amount of
time he spends on social networks? Or it would be a good idea (on the moral
side of the issue, anyway) if the makers provided a way for the consumers to
limit their usage?

~~~
rgbrgb
Well I can tell you that this is my top reason for not selling weed.

I don't really care if it's the fault of the addict or the dealer. If there's
a problem and I can easily help fix it, I probably should.

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trustfundbaby
summary ... social networking is nice but society can abuse it. I'm doing it
the right way, everybody should do it how I do it.

What a waste of my 5 minutes.

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technomancy
Did it bother anyone else that their anchor tags included the space following
the words?

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stevenj
He (and I) likes to be active, others like to watch YouTube videos.

To each their own.

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paganel
A Milan Kundera reference in Forbes magazine... The world must be approaching
its end, then :)

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DavidBishop
Agreed. Nothing more be said.

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BornInTheUSSR
This article is worth a retweet

