Some Thoughts on 21st Century Communication
As social networks proliferate, there are more and more outlets for people to express themselves. Between Facebook and Twitter, as well as the second and third tier players, we constantly update our statuses to anybody who will listen. Blogs have matured, and become less of a publicly aired journal. Then there are the sites which are merely related to your life, such as LinkedIn or Flickr, that showcase one aspect of your life.
Taken all together, all of these sites can provide a thorough portrait of somebody’s life. They can give an represent your activities, likes and dislikes, interests, how you make a living or how your express yourself. As a whole, this is a vastly different way of relating to people. In the not-too-distant past, this intimate insight into people’s lives often took years or decades to fully investigate. Now we can learn almost everything about somebody in fifteen minutes.
Still there persists a certain disconnect. While some people project out through many social channels, the people who receive the message so often see such a narrow view. We may follow a friend on Twitter, but not on Facebook and Flickr. Or possibly we subscribe to a certain blog’s RSS feed, but we ignore what the author posts on MySpace. The frequently conflicting nature of so many of these sites, combined with their proprietary networks, creates a sort of walled ecosystem around each site. Though people project a certain image of themselves, not everybody receives it.
This is not to say that it is any worse than communication in the past, just different. Communication is easier and cheaper today than it’s ever been. And it will only get easier and cheaper from here on. Global competition has lowered the price of everything, and only for the better. We can see what our friends are doing in another city, another country or across the world. We can meet and interact with people who we never would have encountered just ten years ago.
In my personal life, the biggest disconnect is between the people “who get it” and those don’t. Essentially, the people who are active with social networks communicate with each other, while those who choose not to have a more limited sphere. I feel more connected to friends who are participate in social networks than those who don’t. I wouldn’t argue that it’s not a sort of one-directional connection a lot of the time, but it does let me know what a lot of my friends are up to without having to initiate a conversation myself.
All of this is not to single out a problem, or to suggest a solution. It’s merely to try to identify some trends. Being alive at this moment is exciting, since everything around us is changing. It’s good to step back and take a look at the bigger picture sometimes.
Josh LaFayette says:
I totally agree that it is exciting to be alive at this moment and I have had the chance to connect and interact with people that I relate to but will most likely never meet in person.
Another unfortunate disconnect in the explosion of social media is the presence of virtual pretense. For example, I get to say that my favorite book is The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, or I can upload only pictures that make me look fashionable and well-liked, or I can update with witty statuses. But in reality I stumbled through The Myth of Sisyphus and probably only grasped half of the meaning, I’ve been wearing the same jeans for years and I only have two friends a wife, and it takes me 30 minutes to think of what to say on Twitter. But it’s hard to be completely honest on internet profiles because it can make me sound cold or apathetic (maybe I am?). Even though people can see tons of personal “information” about me, it’s difficult to present my actual, “real” self.
May 18, 2010, 9:50 amI find it much easier to try to be absurdly hilarious instead of brutally honest.
ifc says:
I agree Josh, but I would definitely maintain that pretense is not merely an online phenomenon. The main issue, I suppose, is that telling is somebody is being dishonest — or being false in another sense — is that there’s just no way to tell. Unless you meet that person in real life.
Something else that I struggle with is that it’s not always easy to be honest online, since far more people can see what you project. It’s easier to be honest among friends, since it stays limited to that sphere. On Twitter, and more and more on Facebook, anything that gets posted is available for the world to see. I aspire to be more transparent on social networks, because that’s really when they become valuable, but the fear of having something come back to haunt me is always there.
Also, in the least pretentious way possible, I would like to recommend Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche as a much better read. Sure, it’s about the most pretentious thing in the world to name-drop Nietzsche, but it’s still a better book. I still had to look up how to spell his name though.
May 18, 2010, 9:51 amJosh LaFayette says:
Totally— it’s such a strange thing to try to be transparent and self-censoring at the same time.
I will definitely check out Beyond Good and Evil.
While we’re unpretentiously dropping names— have you read any Sartre? He’s my go-to-man. His philosophical essays are dense and difficult and his fictional narratives are awesome and heavy.
May 18, 2010, 2:30 amifc says:
I have neglected Satre. I took a few really good philosophy classes in school, but Satre tended to be at the end of the school year. I’ve only read an essay or too. I’ll have to go back and re-visit though. Thanks for the recommend.
May 18, 2010, 7:05 pm