Response to Andrew Keen’s “Digital Vertigo”
“Social media is the confessional novel that we are not only all writing but also collectively publishing for everyone else to read” (23).
Andrew Keen, author of “Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Social Revolution is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us”, addresses the impact of digital technologies on 21st century business, education, and society. Keen, an internet entrepreneur who founded Audiocafe.com, supports the idea that we have turned into an age of exhibition: nothing is private anymore. What is the reason for our overly public society? The answer, according to Keen, can be summed up in two words: social media. The major and surely most obvious example of this is Facebook. Anyone can find a plethora of information about anyone they want by surfing the web, especially if you are “friends” via Facebook. Facebook makes it disturbingly easy to find out the who, what, where, when, and why’s of daily life. Although it pains me to admit it, I am guilty of occasionally Facebook stalking every now and then. But there is something to be said about my feeling of guilt. I think guilt is the initial feeling that comes up because I feel as if I am intruding on someone else’s life, yet what they are sharing isn’t all too “private”. As Keen points out
Like the network itself, our mass public confessional is global. People from all around the world are revealing their most private thoughts on a transparent network that everyone can access (25).
My understanding of why people feel so comfortable with confessing their most private thoughts or opinions is because they feel protected taking behind a computer screen. In this case, the computer screen acts as a type of “wall”, protecting people from on the spot questioning and discussion, yet allowing them to divulge anything they want.
One specific part of the reading that I sought to better understand was Mark Zuckerburg’s take on loneliness and how he believes Facebook is the “cure” to end it. I believe, to a certain extent, that Facebook reinforces loneliness. Although we can carry long, dense discussions with people via the internet, we aren’t making an authentic, really personal connection with them. I think what attracts so many people to communicating via text or Facebook is that we feel less vulnerable than if we were to meet face to face. Yes, Facebook makes communication easier, but does it make it more gratifying? For me, the answer is it doesn’t.
What I found frighteningly true from “Digital Vertigo” was Keen’s observation that nothing is private anymore. Keen uses the example of reading to support this claim. He states:
Yes, reading, that most intensely private and illicit of all modern individual experiences, is being transformed into a disturbingly social spectacle…It means the end of the isolated reader, the end of solitary thought, the end of purely individual literary reflection, the end of those long afternoons spent entirely alone with just a book” (43-44).
Keen’s statement relates directly back to the quote headlining this post: that social media is the new novel of our generation. After reading this excerpt from “Digital Vertigo”, I am more conscious of the extremely large precsense of social media. With this in mind, I plan on being the architect of my own exhibit of personal data. I’d like to ask whoever reading this if you feel like social media is becoming too public and if not, what do you find to be beneficial about all the personal exposure?
Megan I thought you made some great points about people being more willing and open to share their thoughts and feelings online because the screen can be thought of as a protective wall between the user and everyone else, because there aren’t as many immediate discussions or criticisms. I don’t think Facebook encourages or cures loneliness either way because its just another medium for communication and it all depends on how people decide to use the social media sites. To answer your question, I think social media is as public or private as the user allows it to be. People can change their privacy settings or decide what to post up, or decide to delete their profiles altogether. I think the social networking sites brings down the physical wall of distance, but brings up another wall in the process as well.
This post summarizes the reading concisely and then discusses the odd appeal of Facebook and the implications for the novel in an insightful way. Good job, but don’t forget to link to the reading.