At a time when, however deliberately or consciously, we live our lives in public online, access to our privacy is the new currency of value. Just because you can keep track of your friends via Facebook, post and tag photos on MySpace, and spew out your every waking thought on Twitter - all easily and for free - it's easy to assume it's a good thing. Josh Harris is a man who made a similar assumption.
Described as "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of," Harris carved a high profile...
A rather eerie perspective in conjunction with the gradually developing phases of internet social-networking nuances. With the translation of this to mobile devices such as Blackberries and iPhones, it seems that we could get to a point where the digital audience (if our connection speed is fast enough) might know what we're doing before we really do. I fear the day when all our GPS, Wikipedia, Google (notably Earth), Twitter, Facebook, and broadcasting technology all coalesce into some giant monster that could be almost impossible to avoid. And if we get over-eye heads-up-displays, well shit- we'll always have the digital world infused into our natural realm.
A decision is going to come soon. Already our HD technologies are becoming more stunning and sharp than that which we see every day-- would it be such a bad thing to view it all through a digitally-modified, hyper-informative, chromatically gorgeous, and all-inclusive visual terminal?
I'm thinking yes. Bad indeed. But it is convenient and provides such connectivity- I don't think everyone will opt out.
In one respect, I find it somewhat ironic that the exposing of people's lives for all to see is being condemned on a site that specializes in showing people naked. With both its nude photos and its social networking aspects, SG is in some respects a part of the phenomenon that the film in question critiques.
On the other hand, we don't have cameras in the SGs living spaces, so it is not as extreme as what Josh Harris did.
The interview sold me on the documentary, and watching it really raised a lot of eerie questions for me, enough that I hope to get friends to watch and discuss it with me. We are already far more hooked in than we think though. One of my favourite stories is of my girlfriend finding a list of words not to say in phone calls online. She then called a friend, told her what she would read to her, and read out 100 words not to say online. No hostile context to them, no sentences to make them make any sense, just allegedly bad words to say in a phone call.
Within minutes, police parked across the street, and watched her house for an hour before driving off. That was over a decade ago.
Missy
SUICIDEGIRL
California, USA
FEB 24, 2010 07:00 AM