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The Horrible Future of Social

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Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#91

Post by njl »

coffeemug wrote: post #71
nostromo wrote: post #9

Meh. This is a touch over-the-top. You know what Facebook is to me nowadays? It's another flavor of Gmail. Sometimes I send and receive messages there. It's plumbing. Sometimes I turn the spigot on for some updates, then turn it off and go about my day. I think pro-social and anti-social pundits are both wrong about the upside and downside of social. Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfa…

Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like Gmail. The printing press is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like hand-copied books.

Just because you can play Mad-Libs with his sentence to make it seem silly, doesn't mean you are adding anything to the conversation. Social networking is a fun and interesting development, but putting it in the same category as the printing press makes me think you are either greatly undervaluing the printing press, greatly overvaluing social networking, or more likely, both.

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#92

Post by jblock »

jeremymcanally wrote: post #65

I see this every time I go to Disney World (I live nearby). It's almost impossible to enjoy a single ride or fireworks show without a ton of people videoing the whole thing or taking horrible pictures of it with a smart device of some sort. Rather than enjoying it and capturing some deep memory of a moment with their family, they have their face stuck in a digital device capturing a crude facsimile of the experience…

There is the off-chance that the effort to capture these experiences leads a parent to get a picture of that child meeting her favorite princess or a snapshot of their son seeing a fireworks show at Disneyworld for the first time.

There's a difference between mindless capture and capture with a purpose. Some people do it terribly (I've been to a few really nice restaurants, and have had the experience nearly ruined by my friends' attempts to take snapshots of the admittedly beautiful meals), but that shouldn't dissuade the idea of wanting to capture an important cultural experience. Hell, I've never been to Disneyworld, and you'd bet your ass that I'd want a picture with Mickey.

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#94

Post by RegEx »

jerf wrote: post #75
RegEx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like rainnnnnn on your wedding day? Because there's no actual irony there.

It's time to pack in the comments defending the putative purity of the word "irony". I've seen numerous people get up in arms about some incorrect use of the term, followed by them giving the "correct" definition. I'm yet to see two "correct" definitions that match each other. How... ... ironic.

I'm completely okay with irony-ish things. But smugly calling something ironic when there actually isn't anything resembling irony there is just odd.

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#96

Post by mtraven »

rhizome wrote: post #78
mtraven wrote: post #15

This is pretty much Jaron Lanier's argument in You Are Not a Gadget (reviewed here: http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-you-are-no... ). They both have a point; systems which reduce human relations to very simpleminded database formalisms cheapen them. But they ignore that the human spirit is (or so we should hope) strong enough to survive Facebook if it is strong enough to survive the other insults and…

Jaron Lanier is a cynical charlatan. It takes a pretty negative worldview to say that the relationships people have on Facebook are the sum total of the nature of human relations, that the entire social phenomenon is a lowest-common denominator operation. The human spirit doesn't have to be strong enough, even without hope. "Facebook killing the human spirit" is an instance of a phenomenon that has never happened .

Well, I agree that he is about 80% wrong, but I don't think he's a charlatan -- I'm pretty sure he's sincere in his beliefs.

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#97

Post by alwaysinshade »

brandoncapecci wrote: post #76
rsl7 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gameification angle is a fad though. checking in and leaderboards for everyday bullshit will get old.

That's like saying gambling is a fad. The novel implementations may change but integrating markers for performance will only come more common in time. Expect to be able to passively track how long you brushed your teeth in the near future.

> Expect to be able to passively track how long you brushed your teeth in the near future.

I guess "passively" is the key. This sort of action-specific data capture has to be implemented in a way that you don't have to intervene to record and process it. The law of diminishing returns will cull anything of marginal utility if it can't carry its own weight (effort in > value out).

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#98

Post by SapphireSun »

brandoncapecci wrote: post #76
rsl7 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gameification angle is a fad though. checking in and leaderboards for everyday bullshit will get old.

That's like saying gambling is a fad. The novel implementations may change but integrating markers for performance will only come more common in time. Expect to be able to passively track how long you brushed your teeth in the near future.

That would probably be a good thing. Most people don't have good oral hygiene practices.

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#99

Post by potatohead00 »

photorized wrote: post #90
nostromo wrote: post #9

Meh. This is a touch over-the-top. You know what Facebook is to me nowadays? It's another flavor of Gmail. Sometimes I send and receive messages there. It's plumbing. Sometimes I turn the spigot on for some updates, then turn it off and go about my day. I think pro-social and anti-social pundits are both wrong about the upside and downside of social. Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfa…

Except FB (well, plus mobile), has managed to change people's behaviors. Your flight is delayed, you are sitting at the airport lounge - and everyone is monkeying with his or her device. No more talking to strangers. Gmail hasn't done that.

No, Gmail didn't do that - but people still avoided social interaction in those kinds of situations by reading magazines/newspapers/books or playing gameboy, etc.

Re: The Horrible Future of Social

#100

Post by lathamcity »

siganakis wrote: post #55
grellas wrote: post #49

That which is shallow but useful can have its legitimate place in life, though it lacks character: a daily commute on the freeway might suck, and might not match the joy and invigoration of a brisk walk on a beautiful day, but it has its place if you need to get to work miles away and if your area lacks public transportation to get you there efficiently; living in the suburbs might suck compared to the excitement of…

I think that the bigger problem is when people begin using "social networking" while they are actually doing the intimate, stimulating, exciting things in real life - either looking for validation or because its easier to bury your head in your phone than it is to participate in social interactions. For example, checking Facebook while out at dinner with friends, or uploading photos of a party while you are at the pa…

I was watching some video the other day where Jon Stewart made a random appearance. All the people around him had their phones out taking pictures of him instead of actually experiencing him being there. It was like proving to other people that they'd had an awesome experience was more important than actually having that experience. Or like they were going through life as tourists, making sure they checked every box and shared it all with other people to make them jealous. "Been within five feet of a major celebrity - check".
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