View of Hastings Old Town from East Hill
When I started this blog a year ago I circulated friends and contacts to tell them about it. In the email I said I was going the blog route because Facebook was a step too far. Subsequently, however, I put the odd entry on Facebook to promote the blog. I even managed a tweet or two.
As time has gone by I've become increasingly disenchanted with both Facebook and Twitter. I've followed a number of people on Twitter - poets mainly - and found that their tweets are a rather pathetic form of self-aggrandisement. Similarly, Facebook encourages an alarming amount of posing.
But Facebook and Twitter are obviously meeting a demand. Interest is created and satisfied. At the same time, I've been reading in the press about how young people can feel under increasing pressure as their screen identities and lives fail to match reality. How daft is that? It's as if they're being sucked into a parallel and disassociated world that isn't satisfying their real needs and aspirations. Scarily, research now shows that spending an excessive amount of time at a computer screen extinguishes those parts of the brain that use and develop social skills. In other words, if you're lacking social skills get off the computer and into real life.
In parallel with the development of social media, the cyberworld is becoming more and more invasive. Scarcely a day goes by without my unsubscribing from some trade circular or other. You can't buy anything online without being added to a mailing list. The most extreme manifestation was when a burglar alarm company I contacted sent me a follow-up email asking for feedback on the call I'd had with them, which was just to arrange an appointment for their surveyor. The delete button came into action again.
This blog was started to keep in touch with friends in other places - both in the UK and elsewhere. Strangely, it's been developing a life of its own, and having started off with a few hundred page-views a month I've now just passed the milestone of a thousand. Nothing in comparison with the number of Sally Bercow's followers on Twitter, but still a source of wonder to me. At the same time, I'm a tad concerned at the fact that I'm adding to the very hubbub that I myself find irritating. My only consolation is that if the blog fails to interest people they're not obliged to look at it!
Antony Mair
Hi Antony, I shouldn't worry about adding to the noise. As you rightly say, people can choose to ignore. Although it's true there's a awful lot of irrelevant/irritating stuff on the internet, there is also an increasing number of tools and settings that allow us to filter out the stuff we don't want to see. The slightly sad thing about this is that I think it heralds the end of serendipity, that wonderful way in which one could frequently meet interesting souls and encounter ideas and happenings that were never accessible before. Of course that was all in the early internet days (ie 10 or more years ago).
ReplyDeletePS I wouldn't be too sure about that research ... I think there are other variables involved. Let's just say I've spent a much higher than average time on the net over the past 15 years and my main complaint is wrist tendonitis. I think I'm still capable of being sociable in real life :)