Sampling Culture http://samplingculture.posterous.com Most recent posts at Sampling Culture posterous.com Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:27:41 -0700 Lost in Cyburbia http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2009/07/30/lost-in-cyburbia http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2009/07/30/lost-in-cyburbia

Finding connection online

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Hal Niedzviecki’s new book The Peep Diaries boldly proclaims, “In the age of peep, core values and rights we once took for granted are rapidly being renegotiated, often without our even noticing.” Here are two cautionary tales about the erosion of social values on the internet. Both authors warn us that social networking may be eroding privacy and this could very well have a detrimental effect on us. Instead of the promised freedom it was intended for, it may instead bring citizens the exact opposite. Peep culture consists of reality television, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, over-the-counter spy gear, and blogs that many of us consume daily. The Peep Diaries is a book that looks into what Niedzciecki writes is the “tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon that is dramatically altering notions of privacy, individuality, security, and even humanity.” While, Niedzviecki delves into the identities and behaviours that are being produced through modern internet socializing and interactivity, James Harkin constructs the notion of a place called ‘Cyburbia’, akin to 1950s Suburbia where conformism abounds. He writes about it as a place where people go, sometimes to search out information, other times to browse material in a hyperactive manner, or other times to waste time. With his exploration of Cyburbia, Harkin reveals the often over-looked history of this place and its cultural and social evolution. Both authors do a nice job of revealing something more about our society and about the ways we’re changing our values - for better or for worse. From TV to Cyburbia: Both authors readily admit how reality television and the voyeuristic qualities of television viewing readily made way for ‘peeping’ online. Niedzviecki contemplates the surge of videos and online sharing sites that capture everything from sex scandals to the most mundane of everyday occurrences. And he asks, “Do people do crazy things just so they can upload their antics to YouTube?” Meanwhile, Harkin remarks on Marshall McLuhan’s theory that television would unify the masses in a kind of communal psychic understanding. And Harkin wonders whether this communal connection has now been made possible with the electronic media that we know today. The Need for Connection: Harkin reminds us of McLuhan’s spiritual convictions, and later the similarly utopian ideals of cyber punks, that we would connect to one another online in a wider global community. Harkin writes convincingly that it was out of a conviction of our common humanity that the internet’s social networking capacity grew. Niedzviecki argues that the practices he sees online today reveal how lonely we are and how little we seem to value privacy because we would seemingly trade it up, in the desperate search for community and connection with strangers, our neighbours or even those we know. Harken warned that by creating profiles and tagging ourselves, this information could be used against us in future. In fact, according to Harkin, electronic tagging was being floated as a controversial way of profiling potential terrorists. Niedzvieski also warned about the negative aspect of weakening social ties in online interaction. He wrote,“There’s no cohesive social network to say ‘that’s not the way you conduct yourself on a date, young man’ … We are many different people living in many different milieus. As a result, we are responsible to almost no one… The arrival of Peep as a primary cultural past-time suggests how much we long for the kind of cohesion and recognition we used to be able to get from the tribe.” The desire to perform: Harkin notes that many of us are skilled when we find ourselves in front of a camera – we know how to behave because years of television watching have taught us how. Niedzviecki agrees, writing that when we market or promote a production of ourselves online, we do so in a fragmentary way. Q & A with James Harkin, the author of Lost in Cyburbia: Amanda Connon-Unda: Are there any downfalls to the increasing time people spend in cyburbia? James Harkin: “People don’t necessarily make the right decisions in Cyburbia. For example, on March 26 with Obama’s open web-forum, they tried to transfer democracy online and they asked people to send in questions online. But the majority of questions had to do with the question: “Can you legalize cannabis?” And essentially the meeting agenda was hijacked by small group of people around only one issue. I think what we have online is not necessarily authentically democratic.…For the most part, online portals are conformist places. So, a closed information loop is not always better.” ACU: Can you think of recent developments in legislation, new software or procedures which threaten to further erode citizen’s privacy rights online? JH: “Google Inform is a company that attempts to make money out of the information we type into search boxes. It’s behavioural targeting. Google gets a hold of all of the information typed into search boxes and it targets people with precise advertisements. Advertising agencies are also thinking of making money this way. It will explode. People forget that the Google search box is a sophisticated database and they type all of their desires there. They may sell this information. They (people’s search key words) tell the stories of peoples’ lives. In 2006 information from AOL searches was leaked and privacy was turned upside down. Twenty million searches surfaced and AOL tried to get it back, but by then many people had seen it.” ACU: What’s the moral of the story in your book? JH: “Many predictions haven’t materialized as we thought they would… If people invest too much in technology…. I think that’s dangerous. They thought that a new global harmony would become of the net, but our world problems still exist. Technology can’t solve all of our ills.” ACU: The author of The Peep Diaries, argues that online socialization reveals how little we value privacy in an age where we are desperate for community. Would you agree with him? JH: “I think that’s true. Young people have different ideas about what privacy is. People in their 20s don’t care as much. It is not the end of the world for them to be posting their photos up… But…We get caught up. We spend time there… rather than as a tool to meet someone new.” ACU: How will cyburbia evolve? JH: “The big question is ‘Will we move from a world where we stare at each other?’ Or ‘Will we start to consume professional content on the web?’ New films by professional storytellers will be found online I think, using the new multi-platform media that we have online. There are dangers to the way things are now. We are not that entertaining. It will be better if people of a new generation tell more sophisticated stories, instead of as it is now, where people spend large amounts of time staring at each other on social networking sites and zoning out. It is not that gripping to me, to stare at Facebook. I’m confident that these new forms of more engaging storytelling will emerge.”

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