Forgetting your media?
This is an odd one for a blog post but I think that we've lost the ability to be comfortable with our thoughts. I'm not sure that we need companionship or a sense of belonging any more than previous generations but I do think we seek these things out with a completely different outlook to our forebears.
there is a constant, never-ending supply of, and demand for, information and entertainment - Television; radio; magazines; newspapers; computers; mobile devices; gaming platforms; the blogosphere. They all enter our lives, shoehorn themselves into our existence and lure us in with promises of engagement. And we enter willingly, we get hooked and we demand more. In exchange for the tacit surrender of our ability to critique, to analyse, to determine logical value we receive a succession, a torrent, a flood of padding to swell our time. Suppliers quest for more to sustain it lest we begin to recover, to think about what we're seeing and hearing. So we're brought in further - connect with your friends [remotely and without ever actually speaking to them]. The feeds, the status updates, the 24-hour news channels, we learn to identify with the world through soundbites.
Perhaps this is the future, exchanging quality for quantity of interactions. in which case, let's figure out how best to use it. Let's not surrender our ability, our right to think about issues. Properly, deeply. The number of interactions we are "required" to have does not mean that we should stop thinking about things. Quite the opposite. We need to get better at it. We need to get more efficient at it. Thinking, without the need for demonstration of our intellect - for each display uses time that might be best spent on other things - but done so we are better able to respond to the world and to all the things within it.
So to Facebook, to Twitter, to LinkedIn, to bebo, to News24, to online fora and daytime television, to leaders, to followers, to queens and to drones I say this - do what you will but please don't give up on thought. When you are comfortable with yourself and your thoughts we may begin to see some progress come out of all the hurry.
UK - 15/09/10
there is a constant, never-ending supply of, and demand for, information and entertainment - Television; radio; magazines; newspapers; computers; mobile devices; gaming platforms; the blogosphere. They all enter our lives, shoehorn themselves into our existence and lure us in with promises of engagement. And we enter willingly, we get hooked and we demand more. In exchange for the tacit surrender of our ability to critique, to analyse, to determine logical value we receive a succession, a torrent, a flood of padding to swell our time. Suppliers quest for more to sustain it lest we begin to recover, to think about what we're seeing and hearing. So we're brought in further - connect with your friends [remotely and without ever actually speaking to them]. The feeds, the status updates, the 24-hour news channels, we learn to identify with the world through soundbites.
Perhaps this is the future, exchanging quality for quantity of interactions. in which case, let's figure out how best to use it. Let's not surrender our ability, our right to think about issues. Properly, deeply. The number of interactions we are "required" to have does not mean that we should stop thinking about things. Quite the opposite. We need to get better at it. We need to get more efficient at it. Thinking, without the need for demonstration of our intellect - for each display uses time that might be best spent on other things - but done so we are better able to respond to the world and to all the things within it.
So to Facebook, to Twitter, to LinkedIn, to bebo, to News24, to online fora and daytime television, to leaders, to followers, to queens and to drones I say this - do what you will but please don't give up on thought. When you are comfortable with yourself and your thoughts we may begin to see some progress come out of all the hurry.
UK - 15/09/10
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