So this post originally appeared on Twitter, in very small snippets, throughout a day last week. These ideas started coming to me piece by piece. I was at work, and wanted to have some way to get the thoughts out of my head and somewhere else. Twitter is where they went. Typically, Twitter is where I go to scream into the void and expel the random thoughts that have no other outlet or rational place. Yet for a few hours, it helped me form a visible string of thoughts I might not have otherwise been able to achieve.
It did get a little long, though. A friend from college recommended that they would be much easier to read in a single post, and I am eager to see how it turns out. I’m not editing anything. I’m simply stringing together my tweets, so proofreading is minimal. Curt sentences, abbreviations, or poor punctuation are all due to Twitter’s 140 character limit. However, for the sake of readability, I’ll insert some paragraph breaks. So here we go:
Powered up tweetdeck this morning. It interfered with listening to @ifanboy, hit pause. Clicked iPhone headphones, Man Man started up instd.
Griping abt technical glitches sounds so petty, but they can be so frustrating. It’s moments like these when I realize how much time I spend working with a computer or electronics in one fashion or another. All in all, it’s far too much time. And how ironic is it that I express this on Twitter?
Occasionally I’m struck by how engrossed our society has become in technology. It’s ubiquitous. I love being able to have a map of the whole world in my pocket. Or be an email away from anyone. 30 years ago, none of that was possible. But I grew up just as everything was changing. I knew a day before the internet, albeit briefly. And I also know that the existence of the Internet has changed the way I think. I expect immediate satisfaction of any question.
That can be highly rewarding, as well as highly distracting. I naturally don’t think in a straight line, so hyperlinks are dangerous. Spending a random 15-30 minutes is like going down the rabbit hole. 15-30 minutes online that is. I know I’m not the only person to believe that the Internet has the capacity to change the way we think as individuals & as a society@large.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the Internet. It’s a wonderful tool, and I advocate for it. It empowers everyone with a chance to be heard. The barrier to entry to become a netizen is minimal. Everyone may voice their opinions. The downside is, with so many voices screaming to be heard at once, the result is cacaphony. It’s still hard to separate the wheat&chaff
So although in theory the Internet allows equal footing (anyone can start a blog), old media archetypes seem almost inevitable. Big name websites like @gizmodo or @boingboing become trendsetters, tastemakers, and content finders, much like trad. publishers. Anyone who may have started a blog has learned how hard it is to get noticed. I’ve lost count of how many blogs I’ve started and stopped….Largely from what I perceived lack of interest. Perceived as a lack of interest. It’s still hard to get noticed, even with all the benefits of self-publishing that blogging allows.
But writing is just one aspect of the Internet. It goes far beyond writing, of course. The Internet frees access to information. And that is a wonderful thing. It is a great tool that encompasses anything that is susceptible to digitization. Which is a lot. I will end my rant soon. A couple more points to make.
Ok. I’m done with that line of thought now. Back to random tweets.
Fin
So? What do you think? Does a post that started on Twitter, which is supposedly accelerating the death of the English language, still make reasonable sense? Granted, it doesn’t have the polish that a normal piece would have. But does it still convey the central train of thought? Let me know.
Tags: Sample
September 17, 2009 at 4:24 am |
Blake,
I enjoyed reading your thoughts. The reason I suggested piecing it together in a blog is because I’ve been thinking about the role of technology in our lives and so I was intrigued by your tweets.
This is the part I enjoyed most:
“Occasionally I’m struck by how engrossed our society has become in technology. It’s ubiquitous. I love being able to have a map of the whole world in my pocket. Or be an email away from anyone. 30 years ago, none of that was possible. But I grew up just as everything was changing. I knew a day before the internet, albeit briefly. And I also know that the existence of the Internet has changed the way I think. I expect immediate satisfaction of any question.”
Sometimes when I see everyone getting really excited about the release of a new piece of technology, it almost concerns me. Not that GPS systems, iPhones, NetBooks, or any other piece of technology are bad… I just think technology has become SO important so fast, and I wonder what impact that will have down the road.
For example, as a kid, I had a rampant imagination. I started writing stories at a young age. I read a lot. But even though I loved reading, I probably wouldn’t have read nearly as much if I had access to all the technological toys available to kids today.
This comment is getting far too lengthy, so I’ll cut it short. Maybe I’ll write a blog post about this soon.
Thanks for posting this.