I actually do have a number of great ideas for this blog that I'm really excited about; it's just that I'm spending most of my time these days either writing something for school or procrastinating on doing so - additional writing doesn't really appeal to me. Throw in my mildly neurotic quest to see that honeygarlic never goes more than 2-3 days without an update, and this is what you get.
On a happier note, this is the 300th post in the history of honeygarlic. I recognize this milestone in the tags/labels section with a now-somewhat-dated movie reference.)
As students, technology plays an undeniably large role in our lives. We use instant messengers to be in constant communication with our friends – and when we're not at our computers, texts fill the same purpose. Facebook and cell phones help to ensure that we're able to make plans with whomever we want, whenever we want.
The problem is that it's not just us anymore. Originally, our generation embraced technology because it was something where we “got it” and our parents didn't. We could just say that we were on Facebook, or talking to someone on MSN, and our parents would nod along and pretend they knew what we were talking about.
But that's no longer the case. Everyone from your high school science teacher to your grandmother is on Facebook, and even those that aren't at least have some idea of what it is.
It's not just the older generation that's finally figured out how to maximize the Internet, though – marketing and public relations executives have done the same thing.
Take Twitter for example. Twitter has been around since 2006, but it's only in the last few weeks that it has taken off as the latest popular social networking outlet, even though Facebook and other sites offer everything you can do on Twitter, and much more.
So why is Twitter suddenly so successful? Celebrities. A Facebook friend request is still, to some extent, a personal thing. But if you're following somebody on Twitter, a level of anonymity remains – people are more willing to stalk complete strangers. Only on Twitter could you read about Hugh Laurie being unable to find his lighter, or Tina Fey eating lunch.
There's a downside, though. For every Shaquille O'Neal or Rainn Wilson using Twitter the same way you and I do, there's another 'celebrity' using Twitter solely to enhance their brand recognition. In fact, some of these celebrities aren't even doing their own Twittering – it's their PR guy doing it for them.
As soon as the marketing industry realizes how popular something is, they try to use it as a way to make money – and they only succeed in driving off the people who made it popular. It happened to rock music, it happened to the radical causes of the sixties, and it's happening to the Internet.
In a way, these websites' own policies are going to be their deathknell. Although Facebook users were firmly behind Facebook's decision to not allow any sort of substantive advertising, this logic is somewhat flawed – most people admit to being so overexposed to advertising that they no longer notice it, therefore it would be in Facebook's best interest to allow more advertisements, making them more money and not particularly inconveniencing its userbase.
Instead, these websites are living by the beliefs that “advertising = bad”, and allowing advertisements will lead to a mass exodus. Companies have instead been forced to look for creative ways to adopt the medium without direct advertising – leading to the aforementioned marketing executives on Twitter. If it gets too cumbersome to find people to connect with on these websites without running afoul of public relations gurus, Web surfers aren't going to stick around.
But there is help, and as is so often the case, it's coming from an unlikely source. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Modena has suggested that all its parishoners abstain from text messaging on Fridays during Lent. In a statement, the diocese called their recommendation “a small way to remember the importance of concrete and not virtual relationships.” Other grassroots groups are springing up as well – people who believe that we have become too reliant on the Internet, and need to get back to more personal forms of communication.
It's not over yet. The Internet is constantly evolving, and we still don't know what it will look like two years from now. Social networking might be the way of the future, or it might be a passing fad. Surfing and texting might be done with less regularity as bandwidth continues to dry up. Regardless, the days of the Internet being a tool for our generation to feel superior to our elders have long passed. Now that anybody of any age can use it for one reason or another, it truly is the World Wide Web.
--Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment