Right now I'm researching a project I'm doing for my e-communication class on interactive advertising, and I stumbled across a video on YouTube which started me thinking. The video starts with these words:
"Once there was a time when we knew where people would be and how to reach them - with messages that would be heard and signals that would be seen.
We'd broadcast what we had to say, secure in the knowledge that somebody, somewhere, was listening."
Well, isn't that exactly what I'm doing here with my blog? Putting my message out there so that people can read it?
I didn't start this blog so people could get inside my head. I started it so I could get out of it. I needed somewhere to express myself and I can't do that here anymore - isn't observer's paradox a bitch?
But in some way, am I not glad that I'm not making all this effort for nobody to bother reading it? Am I secretly looking for an attentive audience?
The video then continues, "We took what we had to say and we said it in the most public way. We took our messages into people's homes at a time that we knew they'd be most receptive."
These days, time both is and isn't an issue. People are always talking about the increased pace of modern life being confusing and frustrating and the way that being constantly reachable feels like you're trapped - but is it? Let's envisage a scenario. You own a smartphone. You are used to having everything you could possibly want at your fingertips all the time - all your emails, all your work, your friends, your family - and you go out for the day, and you forget your phone. You could think of this as an opportunity to relax, create a bit of space between you and the rest of the world... but do you?
Maybe you do. If that's how you choose to see a day without your superior communications device, congratulations. You're a stronger person than I am. Because, despite once being one of those people who thought being glued to your phone was pathetic, that version of me disappeared almost the minute I got a BlackBerry. I feel naked without my phone, unable to stand the frustration of not being able to know everything now. I might be missing something really important!
I realize now that I'm in this culture that people aren't addicted to their phones; they're addicted to the ease with which they can access their entire lives from wherever they happen to be; they're addicted to the freedom - not captivity - that their phone brings; they're addicted to the people they're talking to. We can know whatever we want whenever we want - anything, anywhere, anytime. With the fast-paced nature of modern life, mobile everything-devices are timesavers, not timewasters. What's wrong with that?
And to say that using a mobile phone is anti-social is ridiculous - mobile phones are the very antithesis of anti-social behaviour. Isn't that why they call them social networks?
I received my first anonymous comment here on the blog last week and though I eventually found out who it was, for a while my brain went into overdrive. An anonymous comment? Who is this person? Why do they like my blog? What are they doing poking their nose into my life?
You see, I hardly ever give any thought to the fact that everything I write to this blank, white screen is out there for everyone to read - and who owns it then? When you upload a photo to Facebook, Facebook owns it; same with YouTube and video ownership. But surely writing is different? Writing is individual. Writing - and speech; the way we play with words - is the way we as people construct our identities. Nobody can place words or construct sentences in exactly the same way I can, and nobody will derive exactly the same meaning from these words as you will, so how can Blogger possibly own something as personal as my - MY - writing? Wait, so the internet owns my identity now?
The YouTube video "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube" describes vlogging as "somebody watching where nobody is". Same with blogging. I've got people from all over the world reading everything I'm thinking and I don't have a clue who any of you are, and that is the most brilliant yet terrifying thing I've ever really thought about.
People are also saying that the skill of multitasking is a huge benefit of all the modern technology we have access to these days, but - again - is it? Can we really complete more than one task at once or are we just spreading our minds too thin, resulting in an inability to really get into detail in any one topic? From experience I can say that I almost never sit down to write a blog post and finish it however much time later having done nothing else. My brain is all over the place, flitting from one topic to the next, starting new paragraphs in the middle of old sentences, especially when I'm inspired-- and coincidentally, as this was exactly the point I was about to make, my phone has just started flashing and my brain is screaming, "No! Not now! You're on a roll, don't answer it! Don't answer it!"
But of course I will, because who can resist the pull of modern technology these days? Who can ignore the red flash of a BlackBerry, the call of the social group - the disappointment when it's only a spam email or a text from your service provider. And, of course, if I'm checking my phone, I might as well have a peek at Facebook as well. And I can't ignore Twitter, can I? And ooh - what if I'm missing a really important email?
I'm not a sociologist, but this is an area of sociology that I do find interesting (which is lucky, because this particular topic is almost exactly the same as most of the second year of my media studies A Level). The internet seems to be one big circle which we can never truly find our way out of - because (like sex, or so I've heard) even the lack of it complicates things. We are travelling through a million different portals every day, in and out of the lives of strangers without them even knowing you were there. The internet is a scary place, but god, it's so brilliant too.
You may find it interesting to know that I was in the middle of the aforementioned project when I became inspired to start this blog post. What project's that then? You can't remember, can you? And is that because you stopped reading this post to do something else and then came back, or are you just thinking about too many things to remember what you read five minutes ago?
Molly x
(Now I'm going to go and see to my Facebook notifications and my ever-vibrating phone. Because yes, I ignored them. Your applause is appreciated.)
Videos referenced in this post:
"Nokia Interactive Advertising"
"An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube"
And, because my e-communication lecturer referenced this as 'essential reading' for our 'create your own LOLcat' assignment:
2 comments:
Very interesting. I love the Antropology YouTube video. I watched it college. I do think though that people are addicted to their smart phones. Everywhere you look. I can understand though having everything at your finger tips. When I'm at home and I was wifi, I always take up that opptertunity checking notifications and things but we are just to dependent. I don't know whether that is a bad thing or a great thing.
Are we though? Are we really dependent on our phones or are we just making the most of the usage we pay monthly for? There's no point in wasting it, after all. I think it's both a great thing and a bad thing - technology is the reason life develops and yes, though there is huge potential for technology to one day take over the human race, it has already brought us so many fantastic developments and will continue to.
It's just a huge circle!
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