Stop externalising your life
jshakespeare.com
Stop externalising your life
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Re: Stop externalising your life
#2>>>
The key thing to remember is that you are not enriching your experiences by sharing them online; you’re detracting from them because all your efforts are focussed on making them look attractive to other people.
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I wouldn't agree with that fully, because I (and I assume many others) often share stuff because I think it's cool and others might like to check it out. Think of the number of time you have discovered neat stuff because someone shared it.
So if you are sharing compulsively and simply in order to make yourself seem awesome, that's messed up - but it is also the cost of content discovery on an ever expanding internet.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#3It's possible you're just thinking too much about it. A lot of people look back on the things they've shared as a way of maintaining a personal photo album. My facebook definitely has a more complete photo history than any one device I own, and it's almost effortless to throw the photos I take up there.
That, and I don't mind seeing the things my friends are doing - it gives me ideas for things I want to do in the future. I used to disdain the "humblebrag" nature of sharing random photos, but I've been getting into a much more "fuck it" attitude recently. It's going okay.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#4Sounds like the author has had some sort of compulsion/addiction to posting pictures on the internet.
Not everyone does that.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#5Mind-reading tweets sender is the future. And mind-reading instagram with google glasses.
More seriously, balance is everything. Take photos, then put away your phone/camera, and enjoy the view.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#6It's possible you're just thinking too much about it. A lot of people look back on the things they've shared as a way of maintaining a personal photo album. My facebook definitely has a more complete photo history than any one device I own, and it's almost effortless to throw the photos I take up there. That, and I don't mind seeing the things my friends are doing - it gives me ideas for things I want to do in the fu…
I think that self-inquiry here is the key, finding one's intentions.
I've sometimes found days ruined by the constant need to update everybody on things – on close examination, I can feel the compulsive need to be bigger and better, which is just more ego – and when looking back at those photos, I know I didn't take them as an expression of the moment, I took them as an ego–enhancer. Which didn't work.
On the other hand, I don't think he's saying "never take photos, never share things". If you examine your intentions and find you're not simply using sharing and photos as a bragging method, then power to you.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#7Ricky Van Veen (College Humor, Vimeo) has an interesting talk about this whole online sharing thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-...
I tend to agree with him, that we share and document the parts of our lives that matter to us, to help create our identity. It's the same way people drive a car that fits or fill their closets with their style of clothing. It's an outward expression of who we believe we are, and how we view the world.
Look at how teenagers use tumblr. They curate content to exactly match themselves.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#8I agree with your viewpoint totally - and others may disagree as they have a vested interest in encouraging consumers to share - but it is an trend that is becoming increasingly prevalent. I think your main point is that we are sliding towards the sharing-for-sharing's-sake end of the sharing spectrum rather quickly and perhaps without realising it, and that its something to be conscious of.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#9>The key thing to remember is that you are not enriching your experiences by sharing them online; you’re detracting from them because all your efforts are focussed on making them look attractive to other people. Your experience of something, even if similar to the experience of many others, is unique and cannot be reproduced within the constraints of social media. So internalise that experience instead. Think about it. Go home and think about it some more. Write about it in more than 140 characters; on paper even. Paint a picture of it. Talk about it face to face with your friends. Talk about how it made you feel.
I think this is precisely backwards. Social media sharing enhances my experience rather than detracting from it, precisely because it is so artless: I'm not thinking about how to describe where I am or what it looks like, I just check in or send a photo. If I were to follow the advice in the second part of this paragraph, I'd be doing exactly what the first half warns me against: focussing my efforts on how things look to other people.
Re: Stop externalising your life
#10Waiting for the pope: http://i.imgur.com/sNTmp4s.jpg
In my opinion you miss a lot around you when you are constantly staring at the screen of your device.
Two days ago I was sitting at a birthday party. The guy next to me constantly took pictures sending them with Watsapp. I never spoke a word to him because he was busy with his phone all the time.
I'm still not sure what to think about that but I don't think I like the change.