We write. We post. We share. We comment.
Why?
To think. To participate. To support. To remember. To smile
together. To laugh. To interact. To discover. To forge connections. To share
ideas. And ideals. To collect little tidbits of truth in our search for
meaning. To take someone’s thought, and twist it a bit, layer something new on
top of it, and cross-apply it to another thing. To synthesize. To build bonds. To
create something from the nothing.
* * *
We live in an unprecedented era of communication. The
Internet and social media have given each of us the ability not only to consume
massive swaths of information but also to actively and interactively participate
in the dialogue ourselves. We have all the world’s knowledge at our fingertips–
history, music, science, movies, literature, the best drinking spots in Playa
del Carmen. And we can share the moments of our own lives and peer through a
window into those of our friends far and wide – in pictures, in videos, in
thoughts and ideas – all with the click of a button.
My Twitter feed embodies this. At any time of day or night,
you can scroll through this ever-changing up-to-the-millisecond list of thousands
upon thousands of people’s thoughts, blog posts, articles, and videos. Consume
to your hearts content. Share other people’s thoughts. Add your own voice. Spread
ideas. Connect with people you know. Or don’t know.
But the promise of the Internet to raise us all up, to be
the great unifier, flattener, democratizer, and educator has fallen short. In
retrospect, the reason for this is simple:
The Internet is a network of us.
It is limited by us; by who we are.
* * *
And just who are we?
Well, its not all that pretty, my friends.
For starters, we are the people whose top most searched
items in 2013 included “twerking,” “Miley Cyrus,” and the Kardashians. So while all of civilization’s knowledge is
there to be had, we’re generally not looking for it.
We often emphasize our differences rather than our commonalities.
The proliferation of news channels and Internet sources has not led to a more
open world, but a narrower one. We self-select the news and feeds that most
align with our point of view. On Facebook, on Twitter, on the cable news shows
we watch. With no need to provide a balanced point of view and with ratings
fueled by the opposite, Fox News and CNBC each cater to their own. The result
is a world that is more politically polarized than ever.
As a corollary, we also are engaging in less dialogue than
ever. A recent Atlantic Monthly Magazine article, entitled
Saving
the Lost Art of Conversation, lamented that all this technology has created
much talking – we are all talking at each other – but what we are losing is the
art of conversation, of true dialogue: “We’re talking all the time, in person
as well as in texts, in e-mails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The
world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem . .
. is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re
talking at each other rather than with each other.”
And we can be mean and nasty and spiteful. Every time I walk
through Penn Station at rush hour, I become more and more convinced that people
intend to, choose to, and in fact enjoy dropping that shoulder into a passerby
in the crowded station. It’s a purposeful taking out of some aggression and
angst.
And this mean streak is even more pronounced online. We have
a tendency to be snippy and snarky. There is an odd thrill and energy from
expressing aggressive outrage in clever little bit sized bits. I’m guilty of it
myself. You probably are too. That
feeling you get after concocting a clever bit of snarkyness is undeniably
satisfying. And the scratch-the-itch feeling grows as the Likes and ReTweets
accumulate.
All over, the tone of posts and comments and interactions
often tends towards one of
snarkyness
more so than civilized discourse. Discourse is boring. It requires a deeper
look and an attention span than runs contrary to the way that we are
interacting online.
Even worse, anonymous Internet message-boards and the
comment spaces after articles brim with vitriolic speech. There is a virtual
piling on in response to behaviors or thoughts or politics with which one
disagrees. Twitter can be a launching pad for broadcasting hateful small-minded
attacks, which sometimes cascade into what feels like the digital equivalent of
an
angry lynch mob. (“The immediacy and fast pace of the Internet can
be magical. But when someone makes a comment that the masses disagree with, a
mob with 140-character pitchforks can develop in seconds and the Internet can
become terrifyingly bellicose.”) Case in
point, the “
Justine
Sacco Twitter Incident” and the “
reporting”
of it by the Internet “news” outlets.
* * *
Are we so base, so ugly, so mean, and so cruel? Or is it the
medium itself; some network effect where giving everyone a voice and the
ability to quickly spread messages sends us racing to the bottom?
Can we blame the medium? When the Internet is merely a
network made up of all of us, it seems tough to do. But today’s technologies do
provide a platform for publication and dissemination of ideas that can
accelerate and magnify our behaviors, the good and the bad, the beautiful and
the ugly.
The Internet as a prism for focusing mob tendencies and rapidly
spreading their virulence is a scary thing. The Internet as a snark amplifier –
elevating the art of the clever takedown over dialogue – is a sad thing.
It’s a glimpse of the monster. And it is us.
It should take us aback and give us pause.
