For the next week, you can catch my appearance on last night’s BBC’s current affairs programme Newsnight with author Clay Shirky, debating the social implications of new technology. It was a great discussion that was overwhelmingly positive about the Web and what it offers, but there were a few sticking points where Clay and I disagreed. I’ll expand on the key one here.
Clay’s new book, Cognitive Surplus, argues that we are experiencing an unprecedented opportunity to do things, now that our free time is no longer bound by the distractions of work and television. For the first time in history, he argues, kids are eschewing television’s passivity and instead are interacting via social networks, blogs, videos, mash-ups, grassroots campaigning and other Web-based phenomena. This, he proposes, means that we are self-actualising and have the potential to revolutionise the world. Bye bye soma, hello a whole new world.
Clay, of his own admission, is one of the few remaining digital optimists. Last night, I suggested that he had drunk too much virtual Kool-Aid (although I admitted that I am also prone to taking a few sips), and that he ignores some of the what I believe are the pragmatic shortcomings of the digital sphere (which I am currently researching): it encourages people to consume information that confirms existing biases; it has the potential to exclude those who don’t understand or wish to use it; it reduces serendipity; it has the potential to generate cognitive overload/burnout; it encourages a “cult of me”. The closest we got to addressing any of these points last night was to talk about dittoheads, or people whose reference for new information becomes narrower and narrower as they selectively consume what content they’ll pay attention to. This term has historically been used in other contexts, but we felt it could also be applied to people who consume a narrow amount of self-confirmatory content online.
I do believe that interactivity is generally better than passivity, subscribing to Martin Rees’ comment during his final Reith Lecture, that, “if you compare the Internet with television, it’s more interactive, and that’s a good thing”. It is a hugely effective tool. But I also recognise that what Clay uses to argue his case are examples of people who would probably be otherwise motivated to do something given the tools at their disposals and the circumstances they find themselves in. What about all those other people with the same tools and in the same circumstances who don’t really feel the need? To create Ushahidi or LOLcats (to use the examples Clay sites in his book), people need to be motivated and able. They need to have the drive and the desire. In addition, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985) proposes that they need to have a positive attitude, and the subjective norms, outcome expectations and behavioural self-efficacy are favourable. And that’s just one social psychological approach amongst many (see also Perez and Mugny’s Conflict-Elaboration Theory) that describes why people might do things. New technologies make it possible to do amazing (and not-so-amazing) things, but that doesn’t mean they will happen.
I also don’t agree with the underlying message in the book that linear television sapped our motivation to do things and made us less likely to connect. TV allowed us to interact socially around common assets: that’s why TV advertising exists. As @ianbetteridge said on Twitter, “the idea that tech ‘until now’ encouraged u to be passive consumers is an incredibly myopic view of technology…TV inspires other work – fanfic, water-cooler and family talk”.
The thing I believe diluted the social experiences that historically surrounded media consumption was the sheer proliferation of assets – the hundreds of TV channels, the sheer volume of different types of media, TVs in every room. Interactions around major media events – the release of a blockbuster film or a new Harry Potter novel, a big game or a festival, or even coverage of national and international disasters – inspired a sense of belonging because people gathered around them as they do now. But they are distinct from interactions to these things now in two major ways: time and volume. Pre-Web, if we weren’t all watching the TV or the event in the same physical space, we would have waited until we ran into friends at the water cooler the day after to talk about, or we were limited to one or a few people over a telephone. Now, because of online tools, we are able share and receive instant, real-time feedback to something with a lot of people. That doesn’t dilute the importance of either experience; in fact, some might argue that the instantaneousness of digital social interaction has its downsides (shorter attention spans, dumbing down, playing to the crowd). But I don’t think it’s cause to cry revolution, either.
One of the most thoughtful reviews of Clay’s book comes from Tom Chatfield in The Observer (Where else? I read it because it confirms my own biases). Tom sums up with this insightful line,
To accuse Shirky of preaching a panacea, though, is to misunderstand the simplest fact about the emerging technological and social landscape he describes: that it represents not so much a replacement of existing systems as a restoration of many far older and more intimate kinds of human relations.
Fair enough. The Web’s greatest power is the opportunity to connect with other people, serving our social needs in a way that contemporary society may not facilitate. But to give it too much emphasis is to dissolve our human agency in favour of the machine, and to imbue this agnostic communication tool with far more magic than it deserves.
Comments
Curiously, television in the US has over the past couple of years integrated online interaction opportunities into their broadcasts. Perhaps TV is no longer the completely passive experience it used to be (in situ), but I am wondering how many of the offers to tweet, follow, click or connect to a TV’s social media channels are actually taken up. I would guess that television is trying to recoup some of a potential lost audience that has as Shirky may be saying opted for a medium that (in situ) is more interactive and which leads to more ‘productive’ (strictly speaking, no judgments) use of one’s time.
Thanks AK for the interesting blog.
Hey Aleks, otionally they are not necessarily even if the technology does not give an ‘interactivism’..i t is at an emotional level that we are not passive but reactive and proactive in wanting to seek to gain the experience in another episode perhaps…i was on a panel at Edinburgh Film Fest in 2003 (as an ex video games company member in the 90’s and a film director now) and the BS i heard from games reps about how their games were superior because unlike films they were not linear and that the consumer could experience something different every time they played..they simply had no understanding of the cognitive and emotional processes involved in consumption of their own games nor the watching of a ‘passive’ film that despite being a ‘linear’ artform could illicit a totally different cognitive and emotional response at each viewing or reviewing…anyway..suffic e to say we disagreed on many levels there..but I’d be very interested to explore your views more on how we are living more virtual lives in experience terms that ‘actual’…any way, huge topic and great to see your handling of it so intelligently regardless of everyones inherent value judgements on any topic, science or art. The camp fire stories became radio stories became tv series became web social networking stories and will become who knows, but all had that common theme of social man’s need for social interaction and good stories at least…can’t wait to read more and get that book published!! All the best, marc xx
good to see your work again after so long a time in academia…I came from there to tv and read for a PhD in consumer behaviour and psychology that has so many sociological/psychological and anthropomorphic aspects and theories that can be assigned to technology/digital revolution…enjoyed your MsC, would love to see your PhD in a book soon! Okay..one thing..definitions of ‘passivity’ and ‘interaction’ here…needs so many more levels and factors such as ‘levels of involvement’…in human cognitive experience this is often a far more important factor even with say tv or films that may be deemed as ‘passive’…em
Hello Aleks – We are doing some exciting projects with our partners in the areas of “Impact of Internet on the youth”. I spent a few hrs this morning on the BBC website which you have anchored. I am based in Singapore and would love to see possibilities of using the “Behavior Test” in some of the survey structures that we may roll out. Unfortunately the BBC site does not provide the details of the behavior test or even the description of the various categories.
My email is given above. Let me know if you can share more details on the test.
Kishore
There is something to the tendencies you describe above which harken back to a mindset which strikes me as a very Bronze Age way of thinking, even though it refers to new technology. It may even be more of a paleolithic mindset. Let’s face it, we have such terrible tendencies as a species that it is hard to credit us as little more than cavemen in polyester print shirts. Our phones may have gotten smarter, but we’re just as stupid as we ever were.
As with everything, there seems to be a marked human tendency to shout “Salvation Is At Hand!” or “The End Is Nigh!” I mean, we do have a few thousand years of at least roughly recorded history under our belts, we might catch on that it’s always a mixed bag. Yes, there is all this new non-local connectivity going on, and it can be quite lovely and engaging, but it also means people you’ve never met can now hurl insults at you from half a world away. As someone who has done a good bit of podcasting, I’ve certainly experienced both. There’s also no escaping the fact that though there are quite a few interesting minds out there which one is enriched by encountering online, it does take a little more effort to be interesting than it does to say, masturbate (which believe me I’m not knocking) which I would say a goodly portion of all this cultural access is being used. But to go back to my stone age analogy you can imagine innumerable people extolling a grand future where goods can be taken to market up to a mile away and you’ll be warmer at night equaled by some dour elder predicting that teenagers will now be rolling around all over the place setting things on fire. Although scratch that, in the stone age the dour elders actually were teenagers.
Perhaps I’m beating a dead horse here, but I’m reminded of the debate Christopher Hitchens had with his brother about the existence of God. The other Hitchens went so far as to point out current trends in crime in the UK as evidence of what happens to society without God. And we always do that, we act like bad behavior is this brand new thing that just cropped up recently and is almost certainly the result of some new trend: hip-hop, drugs, the internet, TV The Beatles, front wheel drive, fried foods or Betty Page. And of course in response to that we need some countervailing force which will save us all.