Why my parents thinks it’s voyeurism (and the rest of us don’t).
“I just don’t understand why others need to know that you’re going to bed, or that you’re at the store,” were the exasperations from my parents when I first described Twitter and Facebook to them. But that confusion is the modern analog of the usefulness of motion pictures or public libraries when they first appeared, or why aircraft carriers are now the kings of naval warfare and not battleships: the core nature of what’s taking place has evolved.
What is taking place is not simply communicating every act we perform (however lofty of insipid), but offering our experience for others to take part. Take one of my examples above: motion pictures. Many felt the invention was a pointless, over-priced novelty surely to fade away because after all .. there were books, radio, and the ever classical stage theatre. Surely Shakespeare himself would castigate the abomination. But while motions pictures claimed to “improve upon” those other mediums, what motion pictures actually did was evolve how an audience member could experience something happening outside of their 5 senses. Call it projection, call it trickery, call it “more efficient suspension of disbelief” - the point is that someone was one step closer to actually ‘being’ there, in that scene, with that hero, …
So while Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks allow us to communicate an idea to others (even if “…watched t.v. … now off to bed” is not much of an idea), what’s really happening is the broadcasting of my experience so others can be in it. And this is particularly exciting when you keep in mind users can now be involved in many experiences in a short time .. almost simultaneously.
To put it another way, if you draw a circle around the experiences I will have today, I was limited in having to describe these experiences and convey them over and into the circle of another person’s experiences. Today, that conveyance is made more tangible not technically by making communication easier, but by essentially allowing circles to overlap.
So to my parents, I shall excuse myself from the table & bid everyone a good night as I am going to bed now. To the rest of my jacked-into-the-internet friends, well .. they’re all a little closer to actually feeling what’s it like to be me, in my life, and shutting for the night.
For some reason, I’m @threedukes.