Are you disillusioned with Web 2.0?
For me, the bloom is off the rose.
The Internet affects us psychologically and socially in ways that people like Maggie Jackson and Nicholas Carr — to name just two — have been writing about fascinatingly. (I have written and spoken about the individual impact of the Internet a fair bit as well. See 1, 2, 3, 4.)
Perhaps it will make me even more of a Web 2.0 apostate to say so, but FaceBook, Twitter, Digg, many blogs, and many online forums are becoming increasingly obnoxious to me. I’m sorry to have to say it, but it’s true. Why? For a whole variety of reasons. But before I get into the reasons, let me say that these concerns don’t apply so much to Wikipedia, YouTube (except for YouTube forum discussions, which are obnoxious), or my own two new projects, the Citizendium and WatchKnow (still ramping up). Those actually produce (or usefully organize) quite a bit of interesting content. But as to many others — well, for me personally, things have reached a breaking point.
1. Facelessness
Frequently, we find ourselves in conversation with people we don’t know. We have nothing invested with them socially. When I first started talking to people in this way on mailing lists and USENET, back in 1993 I guess it was, online conversations were a bizarre but compelling game. It was still fascinating that I could speak to people who lived halfway across the world. It was the first time that I had conversed very much with people from Europe or Australia. It was also the first time that I could connect with people with very special interests (in my case, the fiddle tradition of County Donegal, Ireland). The social possibilities seemed rich.
Now they seem woefully impoverished. The stunning diversity of humanity online does not make up for the annoying effects of anonymity and disembodiment — or in one word, facelessness.
It so happens that I “know” fairly well on the order of dozens of people, people each of whom I have, at one time or another, spent many hours conversing and/or working. I’ve met some of these people in real life (IRL), but I would not recognize most of them if I were to pass them on the street. And, when you get down to it, I don’t really know much about these people. We only know about our shared interests — Citizendium, Wikipedia, fiddle music, or what have you.
To be honest, this makes me sad. I think that I should know my Internet acquaintances. I’ve spent so much time with them, I feel that I know them — and yet, I don’t. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I think there is a small sort of tragedy here. It seems pathetic that we so often meet a powerful and natural need for human companionship by sitting down and interfacing with a computer, usually through the medium of the written word. But really to get to know people, we need to be around them — hear their voices, watch their facial expressions, see how they react to things in your immediate vicinity, and in short “pass time” with them.
Please do not write to say that you have gotten to know all sorts of people intimately through deep conversations about many topics that you could not have discussed face-to-face. Yeah, I know. Me too. I have been doing that for a long time myself, so I know it’s possible. And yet a failure to “interface” in person has seemed to make all the difference to the long-lastingness of the relationships. The people who I have met in person after those long conversations I still count as friends; others, whom I never met in person, I’m sorry to say I’ve forgotten some of their names. (That’s an apropos word here — “interface” — isn’t it? On the Internet, we are faceless; so we don’t really connect, we “interface.”)
2. Groupthink
The second reason Web 2.0 is becoming obnoxious to me is that I really, really hate groupthink. It may sound very strange that the main architect of Wikipedia is an individualist, but I am and always have been. Please don’t misunderstand; I am not, contrary to Andrew Lih and the London Review of Books, an Ayn Rand-following Objectivist, and that’s partly because I detest the way so many of Rand’s followers themselves engaged in groupthink without admitting or even knowing it.
But let’s not get off on that tangent. My present complaint is about the groupthink inherent in the design of so many Web 2.0 websites. It is one thing to aggregate opinions and data that reflects opinions, as Google and Slashdot do. (I think James Surowiecki’s excellent book The Wisdom of Crowds has been largely misappropriated in defense of many of these websites, by the way. Not all online crowds are wise.) It is quite another thing to be part of a community that has a variety of mechanisms that allow us to reward people who agree with us and punish those who disagree with us. Those are the tools of conformity and groupthink. As far as I can tell, the rating of comments in Amazon and YouTube are nearly as interesting as the comments themselves. As a result, we’re stuck with a lot of really overinflated ratings on YouTube (though, again, I really like a lot of the content on YouTube, for all the garbage available there) and a lot of pointless head-nodding in Amazon reviews.
(Amazon punishes user scores when your comments are low-rated, and it’s very hard to give a bad review without your comment being low-reviewed in turn. I’d guess this is because most people who care enough about a product to say anything about it generally have good opinions about it. This artificially inflates ratings — good for Amazon, bad for the end user who wants a more accurate view of the product. This is why I always pay careful attention to the well-written bad reviews.)
What’s really disconcerting is when people like NYU’s Clay Shirky seems to celebrate groupthink. If he doesn’t, I wish he would clarify sometime. In this Britannica Blog post, he said essentially that the instantaneous and always-on nature of Internet communication means that people are rapidly losing the patience and even the ability to take longer, more complex stuff (like Tolstoy) on board. But Shirky and some others don’t just assert that this switch to instant, bite-sized communication is happening, they (unlike Nick Carr) seem to celebrate it. I do not, because such communication represents a powerful engine of groupthink, which is both tedious and (if history is a guide) dangerous. If you want to be an individualist, you have to think deeply, a lot, by yourself. I would argue that you really have to come to grips with the great minds of the past (and present), as well. None of this can be done in any “bite-sized” way. But twitters and most blog posts from most people are at once both navel-gazing and intensely attuned to the tastes of one’s audience (real, imagined, or hoped-for). When we write briefly in a medium that makes reading and replying instantaneous, if we aren’t plugged in to whatever happens to be on other people’s minds these days, they won’t read and they won’t reply. We become irrelevant if we’re not mainstream; and you’re bound not to be, because true individualism rarely runs in the mainstream. Of course, the “success metrics” of blogs (Technorati scores, for example) and other social media only encourages this natural human tendency to conformity. I don’t know how any serious intellectual can observe this trend and not be a little nervous.
The result is that we become more and more Borg-like (and, plumped in our chairs, less Borg-like). Sorry, but I will not be assimilated. I just won’t play. I won’t Twitter. I won’t blog about the latest cool thing. I won’t update my Facebook page…often.
Let’s put it this way. I have complex, ever-changing, idiosyncratic tastes and views. The notion that I ought to be particularly concerned about “what’s percolating in blogs now” (for example) deeply offends my individualism. It’s sad and ridiculous that I should let my free time be eaten up by the concerns of an often faceless group of people — especially one that often behaves like a pack of hyenas — rather than my own personal concerns, or by interfacing with the great “cathedral-like minds” of the past. I’ll genuflect where I please, Shirky.
3. Such a godawful waste of time
The first time we see a shiny new Internet toy, we are all oohs and aahs. But, OK…isn’t it time to stop it with the “Which Star Trek character are you?” quizzes on Facebook? (Yes, yes, I have taken such quizzes. I’m not proud of it.) Why do we play these games? Aren’t they getting tiresome already?
Seriously, to my way of thinking, there are worthwhile Web 2.0 projects — like, of course, the Citizendium and WatchKnow (not launched yet) — but it seems like the vast majority of the websites, and many attractive and popular features within more worthwhile sites, are a waste of time.
Now, if you tell me, “You’re not getting it, this is social media, it’s for socialization,” I reply, “Yes, but what kind of socialization?” Are you seriously telling me that you make or foster meaningful friendships with all the silly tools and communities that exist out there? If you want to socialize, shouldn’t you be having a beer, playing pool, watching a game or movie together, taking a hike together — that sort of thing? No, I am not convinced. The fact that it is popular does not mean that this kind of socialization is a healthy way of socialization. It is a pale shadow of the real thing.
If competing for a place on Digg’s front page is of little value qua socialization — and on anybody’s account it has little value in terms of getting knowledge or wisdom — then sit down and tell me soberly: what the hell is it good for?
I know a reply to this will go something like this: you’re whistling in the wind. You’re a luddite. You’re trying to stop the tide. Complaining about Web 2.0 today is like complaining about television in 1960. To which I reply: I know that Web 2.0 is here to say; I helped build it and I know exactly the source of its staying power. I wrote in 2004 that sites like Wikipedia are natural institutions. But every human institution is imperfect, and some have far more flaws than others. Prostitution, for example.
Wasting our free time in faceless groupthink, staring at a screen instead of jostling shoulders or holding hands — is that where we in post-industrial societies are going? Is it where we want to be going? If you’re a kid, is that what you want society to be like when you grow up? If you’re a parent, is that what you want for your kids?
And if not, how can we use our boundless creativity to find a solution?
Hi Larry, I agree with you that much of Web 2.0 is going in directions that can hardly be labeled “progress” but I assume that many communities or purposes exist for which Web 2.0 tools or platforms can be put to good use, and in my eyes, research collaboration is an ideal candidate for this. To give just one example, take a look at this collection of scientific activities that came out of exchanges at Friendfeed: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=plwwufp30hfqwGp0_E3iKNQ .
Comment by Daniel Mietchen — May 22, 2009 @ 11:15 am
The idea of online social networking sites that “reward people who agree with us and punish those who disagree with us” is not a new one, but I admit that I’m absolutely inable to think of a way to get around that. There is the “benevolent dictator for life” model that some projects follow, but I view that more of a “buy now, pay later” kind of system. What if the dictator suddenly becomes less benevolent, or disappears from the scene entirely? Is the community forced to find another monarch to keep the hierarchy alive (and how do you select just one from the community, and is he benevolent, etc), must they build a new power structure from the ground up, or should they disband the project entirely as untenable? Jimmy Wales has done a good job of slowly backing himself out of the Wikipedia leadership structure and handing over authority to the community at large, despite any other faults you may find in him. Wikipedia will survive just fine without Jimmy around for just this reason.
On Wikibooks there have been a number of occasions where I’ve nominated or promoted new admins that I have fundamental disagreements with. I’ve said on more then one occasion “agreeing with me is not a prerequisite to being a good Wikibookian”. Unfortunately, there are many people on WB, WP, and beyond that couldn’t take such an action. “My way or the highway” is by far and wide the more common sentiment, and as an anonymous user of the internet means that expressing those kinds of opinions comes with no drawbacks. Wiki sites have no deadlines so individuals can stonewall for as long as they like. Why compromise, when there is no individual benefit in it and no personal price to pay for being unreasonable? An anonymous user can disappear like the wind and move to a new community where they have no preexisting reputation to worry about.
People who waste their time in real life are going to waste their time on the internet too. The same people who were watching endless hours of television 10 years ago are the same people spending endless hours on twitter and on blogs and on “Which Muppet are you” facebook quizzes. It’s not too long ago now that teenagers were stereotyped as spending too much time on the phone instead of meeting in person, the internet is just an extension of that. I’ll go so far as to modify the old adage: A fool and his time are soon parted. A time-wasting fool is going to waste time in real life just as surely as they will on the internet, so the internet isn’t really the problem.
Comment by Andrew Whitworth — May 22, 2009 @ 12:15 pm
Thanks for the comments, gentlemen.
I agree that people who waste their time in real life will waste it on the Internet. TV merely turns off your brain. The Internet ups the ante over TV by substituting faceless groupthink for more meaningful human interaction. Which is worse?
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 22, 2009 @ 2:02 pm
I can see where you’re coming from; but, I disagree with you - it’s all in perception and your purpose for being involved with Web 2.0, Social Networks and Social Media.
Regarding “silly quizzes”, aren’t we entitled to some fun on the net, even if we do our business here? All work and no play makes for a dull day! I personally don’t take many of the quizzes but occasionally I do see one that looks fun and indulge - breaks me away from work for a moment too. But, even for those who do take tons of quizzes - so what? Maybe they don’t get out as much as they used to, so playing a few games online is more convenient than going to a sports bar or somewhere they can throw darts. And you can, actually, get acquainted with someone based on these interests…you may or may not develop a meaningful relationship, but it’s possible. For instance, I may join in a quiz or game about Star Trek because I saw that my FB friend took it. I get my results and share it with them and say something like “Hey, I saw you took the Star Trek quiz and I love Star Trek so I took it too! My results said xxxxx which was dead on!” They reply with whatever and then you learn that you have some other things in common and begin developing a relationship…all from common interests.
I’ve probably met more long-term friends and business associates online than offline; we’re past the days of having to “rub elbows” with people to create a meaningful relationship of various types.
And, facelessness? We’re not faceless, that’s what pics are for and one of the reasons using a pic of yourself on your networks is encouraged. I recognize the people I mingle with who have pics when I see them somewhere else; maybe that’s just me, maybe I AM actually paying attention…dunno.
Sure, you can’t gauge their facial expressions, yadda yadda but I couldn’t possibly connect with the myriad of people I’ve connected with online, offline unless I spent my entire day, every day out and about introducing myself to every person I saw and forcing them to take some time to listen to everything I would have put on a profile and asking them to tell me everything about themselves in return.
I’m not going to say “you’re trying to stop the tide” because you couldn’t if you tried. The tide is too big and powerful but you apparently already know this.
I’m not saying “stop interacting with the offline world” but embrace the amazing new power and connections made available and utilize them for your own purposes, values or reasons. We all interact in our own ways and for our own reasons whether it be to learn about something, to share something, to make money, to gain some sort of status, or to simply socialize - the same way we’ve used our offline avenues pre Web 2.0.
“Reward people who agree with us and punish those who disagree with us” - ha, this goes on offline ALL THE TIME! This is not just an online issue and is an issue that won’t likely be resolved off or online, it’s just part of life that you learn to live with because you cannot control everything. I was once fired because I didn’t agree with higher management on particular things - but always rewarded by lower management that I DID agree with. Eventually higher management overpowered lower management and found a way to get me out the door.
If you don’t want to “waste your time” with groupthinks, quizzes, etc. - don’t. Someone else may enjoy them for their own reasons. Just as you might hate bowling and find it a waste of time but someone else may love it and find it relaxing.
Personally, I prefer to be home most of the time these days. Sure, I like to get out some but I have kids, dogs, a house to run, and I work a lot (online). By the time I’m done running the kids all over town for sports and entertainment, running daily errands, dealing with the house and dinner, and everything else - I don’t want to go anywhere else! So lucky for me, I don’t really have to. I can educate myself about things I’m interested in, socialize, goof off a bit, make money, and develop relationships of various types…all from my computer and I’m quite happy about that.
It’s YOUR job to weed out the stuff, and people, you’re not interested in or find a waste of time. Not everyone is going to be on the same page as you, things the same things are a waste of time, dislike groupthink, etc. etc. They have their own perception, values and reasons.
So, no, I don’t think I’m disillusioned by Web 2.0 at all =)
Just my 2 cents!
Comment by Social Media Maniac — May 23, 2009 @ 3:22 am
If by “groupthink” you mean individuals that share some or a great amount of common ideas….then I think you’re misapplying the word. I find, being an Objectivist, more diversity in my philosophy than I see on the major news outlets and so-called intellectuals on many university campuses. So…why single out Objectivism when the underlying philosophy of liberalism with its socialist & fascist tendencies today are so “camp”? Just because you may disagree with a philosophy favoring individual rights…..? Look to the “left” if you truly want to see group-think echo chambers.
Comment by Robert Taylor — May 23, 2009 @ 7:29 am
Would posting a lengthy rebuttal prove my point, or only further yours (since you don’t know me)?
Comment by S.G. — May 23, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Robert — that’s not what I mean by “groupthink.” You could look it up. It’s a very interesting concept.
I’m not singling out Objectivism. I’m just clarifying in public that I don’t own the label “Objectivist” which (apparently) Andrew Lih stuck on me in his recent book (or in an interview, I don’t know which).
There is groupthink on both left and right, statist and libertarian. Good mental hygiene is pretty much orthogonal to politics, in my opinion.
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 23, 2009 @ 11:39 am
S.G. — I don’t think my not knowing you affects the cogency of your arguments, so fire away.
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 23, 2009 @ 1:46 pm
Hi Larry, my first comment on your blog. I’ve been an admirer for a while.
This very moving post put me in mind at the end of something I found very helpful earlier in the week from Thomas Sowell: “Being uninformed is not nearly as bad as being misled. For one thing, it is much easier to know that you are uninformed than to know that you are being misled.” I right away made a note in my TiddlyWiki that BeingUninformed, very widely, was from now on both a boast and an aspiration!
I found you buy the way through … well, I’ll let you guess the preocess if you’re interested from my latest tweets. http://twitter.com/rdrake98
Comment by Richard Drake — May 23, 2009 @ 3:07 pm
[...] morning, too, I saw Stephen’s link to a post by Larry Sanger, Are you disillusioned with Web 2.0? It was an interesting post. Sanger starts out saying: Perhaps it will make me even more of a Web [...]
Pingback by Re-thinking my connectedness « Random Thoughts — May 23, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
I’ve been using social media (SM) on the Internet since 1981. Usenet led the way as an early social media platform. So did BBS. I agree with your warning about groupthink, time wasters, and faceless crowds. However, I don’t think it’s worth fretting about the current state of SM because it is still evolving at a fast clip (perhaps even accelerating, but I don’t have the measurements to back up that assertion). Web 2.0 used to be all the rage last year. The catchphrase quickly became “social media.” MySpace and Facebook had their time in the spotlight. Now it’s Twitter’s turn. Something else will come along. We’re not done inventing yet. We haven’t decided what we like. We haven’t found balance in our online and offline lives.
One other factor to take into account: smart phones are the PC platform of the 21st century, and Apple has been dominating. Google came second. Palm is out next week. Granted, that doesn’t help content creators for projects such as Citizendium. I like to sit at my desk to do serious work. But there’s no doubt that reading content is shifting to mobile devices.
As for your concerns about facelessness and mindlessness. I agree. But I deal with it by telling myself, “Get over it. It’s not your problem.” Model something better. Remember Gandhi: be the change you want to see in the world. You’re already doing that at Citizendium, which is so much more civil compared with Wikipedia. I use Facebook, but I use it to nurture real life friendships. I use MySpace, but only to add artists to my friend list. I use Twitter, but I strive to add to the global conversation, minimizing the drivel.
Back to my comment about balance. This process will take time. Weak minds are becoming weaker, but strong minds have never had better tools to self-educate. This is only the dawn of a New Renaissance! Give it a generation or two.
– Tim 1E4AF729D5CEFFD0
Comment by Tim Chambers — May 23, 2009 @ 7:25 pm
The comments jumped the shark with the Objectivist/Liberal/Socialist/Fascist thing. In fact, I suspect that Sanger’s been trolled. I, too, have fears that Web 2.0 has become a big waste of time. But I see little distinction between the Digg/Twitter/Facebook hub and the Wikipedia/Citizendium/WatchKnow hub. People won’t pay for quality on the Internet, and (as has been true for centuries) you get what you pay for.
Comment by Gregory Kohs — May 23, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
[...] Web 2.0 e disillusione. [...]
Pingback by Feedscrolling: brevi dalla blogosfera e non solo (24 maggio 2009) : Catepol 3.0 — May 24, 2009 @ 4:51 am
Tim, agree with you it’s too early for final verdicts and that ‘minimizing the drivel’ is a cool objective for Twitter. It largely depends who you follow I think. For example …
I hadn’t heard of you until last night London time. But I had a look at all the people Larry was following - because what he said here resonated so much I figured there’d be a higher proportion of signal to noise for me in that set of people. Something in your tweets caught my interest. Now I’ve clicked through on your latest one, briefly, and I’m much more interested. That’s partly how to stay sane and tweet I think. Even though the relationship is never going to be quite the same as face to face we are responsible to make it as good as it can possibly be. ‘Do all the good you can,’ as John Wesley said to a follower setting off into an unfamiliar and maybe brutish culture. The American colonies wasn’t it?
But I follow an eclectic bunch. Thus I went ‘public’ this morning about a profanity tweeted on arrival back in the UK by a well-known comic here. I haven’t tried that before.
What I go on to say to Mitch Benn (which I realise he may never read but somebody will) illustrates the problems of freedom we all know about. Catholics might not be so relaxed about some of his Pope jokes today but I thought they were mostly harmless and some of them quite funny. On the other hand, I hate ‘Jesus’ being used in anger as a curse. Sometimes I dare to ask people not to do it. But of course I’m not asking for them to be locked up or killed if they disregard me. It’s a polite request and that’s it. A lot of the stupidity on the Web gets that distinction between asking and coercing wrong. And of course a particularly community has the right to set norms and enforce them as they see fit, within the law, as Eric Raymond said very well the other day: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=923
Anyhow, maybe you won’t even read this, so of course I’ll now tweet to alert you a tiny bit more
Comment by Richard Drake — May 24, 2009 @ 7:37 am
>>I don’t think my not knowing you affects the cogency of your arguments, so fire away.
But it does affect the quality the relationship? What is our relationship if not based on the cogency of my arguments (and vice versa)?
>>The stunning diversity of humanity online does not make up for the annoying effects of anonymity and >>disembodiment — or in one word, facelessness.
It’s interesting (and I agree to a point) that you should see facelessness as a disadvantage. Have you considered the benefits of the facelessness? I’d wager that some who express themselves through Web 2.0 wouldn’t do so in face-to-face. Additionally, the facelessness can prevent or mitigate prejudice or discrimination that might exist in face-to-face settings.
>>The second reason Web 2.0 is becoming obnoxious to me is that I really, really hate groupthink.
I agree that groupthink is dangerous (and baffled by Shirky), but how does this differ from offline life? It seems to me that offline can become just as homogenous as online without the effort. Question: As I understand it, prior to Nupedia you considered forming sort of arts and philosophy blog (before it was called a blog) with Wales. How would you have avoided groupthink there? Or would you have fallen in the same trap?
>>Seriously, to my way of thinking, there are worthwhile Web 2.0 projects — like, of course, the Citizendium >>and WatchKnow (not launched yet) — but it seems like the vast majority of the websites, and many attractive >>and popular features within more worthwhile sites, are a waste of time.
So is the critique of Web 2.0, or just the level of discourse? Does one have to beget the other?
>>Are you seriously telling me that you make or foster meaningful friendships with all the silly tools and >>communities that exist out there?
Is it really one or the other? I agree the primary focus should be on face-to-face relationships, but you can’t always go play pool with your friends.
Comment by S.G. — May 24, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
I’m not sure, but I think I mixed between two meanings of “groupthink” in this comment, only one of which you have used in your post. I fear I’ve made a strawman argument. One meaning is coherence in apparent opinions of a group. Another is Web polls and scoring systems biases. Please keep that in mind while reading this.
Having a fixed face* and registered name, ID number, etc.., in real life can lead to groupthink. You wouldn’t want to show opinions outside the consensus because people will always first think of you as the guy who stands for those unpopular opinions. You can lose your friends, your family, spouse, job, etc, etc.. for advocating your beliefs, if those beliefs aren’t very popular.
Here we can at least call ourselves Anonymous in the Name field and hope no one will link our email or ip address with our real life persona.
* not all of us are shape shifters.
Comment by Anonymous — May 24, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
What is lacking here is any actual sense of human history. Every communications advance, from cave painting to Twitter, moves us away from the tactile towards the global, and with each advance we get the banal and we get the valuable. We decide which side of these equations we will be on. Neither “faceless” communication, nor “groupthink,” nor “time wasting” has altered across these epochs, there are those who choose to have the problems, and those that do not. http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2009/05/width-of-world.html
Comment by Ira Socol — May 24, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
I think web 2.0 attracts a lot of stuff from people. While I agree about a lot of what you have said especially the facebook quizzes, but I do think that these networks have utility value too.
Especially twitter, and a lot of people are doing many interestingly useful stuff with these networks in terms of collaboration
Comment by Priyanka D — May 25, 2009 @ 4:38 am
Larry’s big reply
Instead of answering everyone individually, I’m going to group concerns logically.
1. These are all problems of the offline world
Four different people (”Social Media Maniac,” S.G., Andrew, and Ira Socol) basically made the same argument, that the social problems I’m listing here are not unique to the Internet. That’s true. I could scarcely even speak the language of facelessness, groupthink, or time-wasting if such things did not exist offline in abundance.
While this is obvious, it’s also not quite to the point. My argument is that Web 2.0 (or social media — I didn’t get the memo that “social media” had become the preferred term, Tim
— but now I know!) has deeply exacerbated some common human problems. Obviously, facelessness, or alienation from our true identities and those of others, is much more pronounced when we can converse at great length online without really knowing anything about someone else. Groupthink is worse online because our nasty conformist tendencies are exacerbated by the “popularity contest” aspect of so many Internet tools, and because we can now so easily find groups of people online who think just like we do.
As to time-wasting, as Andrew puts it, “A time-wasting fool is going to waste time in real life just as surely as they will on the internet, so the internet isn’t really the problem.” Well, admittedly, there isn’t anything unique about the fact that we waste a lot of time online. I wasn’t aware that I was claiming it was a unique problem about the Internet, and the fact that we can waste lots of time watching TV or playing video games or whatever doesn’t make me less annoyed by the new ways we’ve found to do it.
So, it’s easy to say “but all those are problems offline, too,” because that’s true, but it rather misses the point.
To digress, I’ll answer something S.G. asked. “Question: As I understand it, prior to Nupedia you considered forming sort of arts and philosophy blog (before it was called a blog) with Wales. How would you have avoided groupthink there? Or would you have fallen in the same trap?” Huh…I wonder where that came from. Well, no, I was seeking out advice from a variety of people about what to do with sangersreview.com which had been “Sanger and Shannon’s Review of Y2K News Reports.” I was thinking of turning it into a culture blog. Jimmy Wales was one of many internet acquaintances I was seeking advice from. (I’ll bet Ben Kovitz was another.) Jimmy responded to that mail by, essentially, offering me the Nupedia job. I would have avoided group think because I would have been the only guy doing the blog, as I recall.
Anonymous makes an interesting point: “Having a fixed face and registered name, ID number, etc.., in real life can lead to groupthink. You wouldn’t want to show opinions outside the consensus because people will always first think of you as the guy who stands for those unpopular opinions. You can lose your friends, your family, spouse, job, etc, etc.. for advocating your beliefs, if those beliefs aren’t very popular.” So the point is, I gather, that there is likely to be more groupthink and conformism offline because we cannot hide behind anonymity offline. That’s true. And I fully admit that it is refreshing what a great variety of opinion can be found online, that could not so easily be found in most of our local neighborhoods, for example. But the Internet can be well described as a series of interconnected echo chambers: like-minded people gravitate to the same places online and their voices tend to be amplified by the “success metrics” of most websites. It’s certainly possible to contradict the prevailing view in some place (and to be sure, this happens quite a bit), but the overall tendency, the flow of current so to speak, is toward groupthink.
2. Web 2.0 can be put to good use
Daniel and Priyanka both basically said that Web 2.0 can, for all its warts, also be put to good use, like research (Daniel) and interesting collaborative projects (Priyanka). I agree, of course, and I think I said as much in my original post, saying that my complaints are not so pronounced in some cases — not, for example, in Citizendium, in which we by policy use our real names, in which we are committed to a neutrality policy that requires us to tolerate different points of view (contra groupthink), and in which we are engaged in a serious (but fun!) project of writing a better encyclopedia.
Tim Chambers says something related: “MySpace and Facebook had their time in the spotlight. Now it’s Twitter’s turn. Something else will come along. We’re not done inventing yet.”
Well, I agree of course. My comment is about the current scene, not about what we are inevitably stuck with. But, I wonder, how much of my critique can be expected to continue to be value, given the tastes and education of most people, and given the powerfully commercial motives of the likes of, say, Jimmy Wales, to say nothing of faceless corporations?
3. Facelessness
“Social Media Maniac,” S.G., and Anonymous were all unmoved by my discussion of facelessness, it seems. “We’re not faceless,” Social Media Maniac said, “that’s what pics are for…” That’s a joke, right? I mean, obviously not what I meant. I meant the ability to interact with others online without them having a clue about who one really is. “Sure, you can’t gauge their facial expressions, yadda yadda but I couldn’t possibly connect with the myriad of people I’ve connected with online…” Of course not, but that doesn’t address my point. My point is that we really are very much unknown to each other, and that deeply alters our relationships, how we interact, and it is, I find, a pale shadow of more meaningful face-to-face social relationships. S.G. writes, “It’s interesting (and I agree to a point) that you should see facelessness as a disadvantage. Have you considered the benefits of the facelessness?” No. I have been online since the early 1990s, I live online, and I’ve founded a number of well-known websites. But somehow I have never considered the benefits of facelessness online. Thank you so much! Now I will go think about it for the first time! Sorry, but…sheesh!
No, of course this is not at all a new point. As an observation it’s almost as old as the Internet itself, I’m sure. But Web 2.0 is billed as the social Web or social media — when I am finding it, in many ways, rather anti-social. And whereas in the 1990s when many of us geeks were first ramping up our Internet participation, most people were offline, now most people are online, and that affects the entire society.
Do we really want our social lives to move online in the way they have — with faceless, alienated conversations? I would rather ask: what is the best way to use the Internet to enhance the healthiest sort of social life? Hint: not by using Facebook all the time, not by emptying out public square while we sit staring at each others’ words through our computers.
4. Silly quizzes and other Internet games are harmless fun, and I’m actually happy socializing online
“Aren’t we entitled to some fun on the net” asks “Social Media Maniac.” Sure. I’m not saying it’s the end of the world or anything, or even that it’s worse than other ways of wasting time. It’s annoying, however, because we’re now able to see just how far from the grand promise of the Internet we are coming.
Social Media Maniac makes a more interesting point: “They reply with whatever and then you learn that you have some other things in common and begin developing a relationship…all from common interests. … I’ve probably met more long-term friends and business associates online than offline; we’re past the days of having to ‘rub elbows’ with people to create a meaningful relationship of various types.” Yes, me too, probably. I’m not saying it’s bad that we create meaningful relationships via the Internet. I met my wife online, so I’d better not say that.
But I frankly am missing more meaningful human interaction, despite being constantly involved in “social media.” This is not a problem I had in younger days or when I was not working at home. You may not be like me; I work from home, and while I occasionally get out of course (saw the latest Trek last weekend), a lot of my life is online, because that’s where I am professionally. I see evidence that more and more people are moving this way. They are increasingly able to work from home — and hence able to avoid face-to-face interaction with people other than their family.
As to this — “If you don’t want to ‘waste your time’ with groupthinks, quizzes, etc. - don’t. Someone else may enjoy them for their own reasons. Just as you might hate bowling and find it a waste of time but someone else may love it and find it relaxing.” With all due respect, like all relativism (I saw a ton of this sort of remark from my old college students), this is trivial. Of course some people like some things which others dislike. This doesn’t prove anything. If your argument is that, if a person likes spending a lot of her valuable free time playing social games online, then it is in her best interest, the inference is mistaken.
Social Media Maniac goes on: “Personally, I prefer to be home most of the time these days. Sure, I like to get out some but I have kids, dogs, a house to run, and I work a lot (online). By the time I’m done running the kids all over town for sports and entertainment, running daily errands, dealing with the house and dinner, and everything else - I don’t want to go anywhere else! So lucky for me, I don’t really have to. I can educate myself about things I’m interested in, socialize, goof off a bit, make money, and develop relationships of various types…all from my computer and I’m quite happy about that.” Well, I’ve been in that situation off and on since 1998. And I’m no longer happy about it, quite frankly. Obviously, you feel differently. I’m not arguing that how you feel is wrong, or how I feel is right. Instead, I am trying to articulate why I feel as I do. Even though I’m making a great argument, you’re still allowed to disagree both with the way I feel and my explanation of my feelings, you know.
My general point is that online socializing is not as satisfying as face-to-face socializing, the sort of socializing that is in a sense natural to us as physical beings. Too much Internet socialization alienates us from our physical nature.
By the way, it isn’t lost on me that there is an irony in this whole conversation — which is occurring online, on a blog, publicized through Twitter. Richard Drake wrote: “I found you buy the way through … well, I’ll let you guess the process if you’re interested from my latest tweets. http://twitter.com/rdrake98” Hmm, maybe I’ll add a note about this to my Facebook page…
So I hope I’ve made it clear enough that this is, essentially, an internal criticism. I am using the system, as a full participant in the system, to mount a critique of the system.
5. It’s a problem but we should be models of a solution
Tim Chambers gives some excellent advice: “As for your concerns about facelessness and mindlessness. I agree. But I deal with it by telling myself, ‘Get over it. It’s not your problem.’ Model something better. Remember Gandhi: be the change you want to see in the world. You’re already doing that at Citizendium, which is so much more civil compared with Wikipedia.” Richard Drake says something similar: “Even though the relationship is never going to be quite the same as face to face we are responsible to make it as good as it can possibly be. ‘Do all the good you can,’ as John Wesley said to a follower setting off into an unfamiliar and maybe brutish culture. The American colonies wasn’t it?”
Tim goes on: “Back to my comment about balance. This process will take time. Weak minds are becoming weaker, but strong minds have never had better tools to self-educate. This is only the dawn of a New Renaissance! Give it a generation or two.”
I hope you’re right, Tim. But if you really want to give your comment some purchase, you need to say what a New Renaissance in terms of meaningful, fulfilling human society would look like in an age in which so much of our time is spent face-to-screen instead of face-to-face.
6. My own solution
Along those lines, I have for a few years been toying with the idea of having offline salons organized in somewhat the way Meetup does. We get together at each other’s houses — better than a local café, more personal — and talk. Maybe we’ll have a rule: nobody is allowed to blog about the conversation.
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 25, 2009 @ 3:49 pm
Note: people who are engaged in groupthink virtually never know or would admit that they are so engaged, because they don’t want to admit that they are so deeply influenced by a headless monster. Of course, those who are silenced by groupthink know all too well that it exists. From one professional source:
Seems rather familiar, doesn’t it? A lot of conversations I see online are afflicted by these problems, I think.
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 25, 2009 @ 4:25 pm
I was looking forward to reading this, as I like contrarian and consensus-challenging views, but even with the later clarification, I’m pretty disappointed.
To my eye, this is a muddle of things you want for yourself, things you want other people to do for you, things you think other people should want for themselves, and things you think other people should do for the sake of something larger. I would rather you had stuck with the first of those: it seems like that’s where a lot of the motivation is coming from. Perhaps you could try again with just that?
If you are instead dead set on trying to tell other people how they should react to and use these new technologies, then I’d rather you came at it with a more balanced perspective, or even a positive one. If I had to sum up this essay in a sentence, it would be: “Web 2.0: it sucks and if you think otherwise you’re irresponsible and a deficient human being.” Surely there’s something more appealing you could say, something that leads people in the direction of positive action?
For example, many and perhaps most people use Facebook and Twitter not to form new, possibly ersatz relationships with people they have never met and probably won’t, but to deepen and reinforce relationships that started in person and will continue that way. Yes, blogs and Flickr let people fritter away endless time. But they also let you keep up with far-flung friends and family, strengthening bonds weakened by the rise of cheap transport and the continent-sized marketplaces that began with railroads. People use Meetup and Upcoming, two prominent Web 2.0 sites, solely to get together in person. Surely there’s something you can find there to like.
Comment by William — May 25, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
William, where did I tell people “how they should react”? See Section 4 in my recent long reply, in which I say specifically that I’m not telling anyone how they should react, but only explaining my own reactions.
You say, “If I had to sum up this essay in a sentence, it would be: ‘Web 2.0: it sucks and if you think otherwise you’re irresponsible and a deficient human being.’” Good lord — I said no such thing, and I don’t know how you could have gotten that out of it. I did not give my full assessment of Web 2.0; I was only detailing a few ways in which it has been disillusioning me. I have to doubt that you’ve even read the essay at all.
As to Meetup — did you see Section 6 of my recent long reply?
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 25, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
Larry, I think I know how you feel. I love your idea about getting together with folks in your area. And it’s a clever gimmick to forbid blogging about it. (I’m sure Ken Myers would approve.) Are you aware of Christopher Phillips’ Socrates Café movement? I attend in my neighborhood every week that I can. The social cross-section is much more broad than what you’re talking about doing. Many regulars have no online life to speak of. But even thought we don’t share that in common, I find my group to be very stimulating and enriching. Our topic last week was “Relationships.” How apropos!
You wrote that if I “really want to give [my] comment some purchase, [I] need to say what a New Renaissance in terms of meaningful, fulfilling human society would look like in an age in which so much of our time is spent face-to-screen instead of face-to-face.” Fair enough. Here’s my rambling, essay-question answer. Maybe I’ll develop it into a term paper or thesis after more discussion and thought. I envision the New Renaissance blending multimedia communication online (email, blogs, YouTube, podcasts, micro-blogging, discussion forums, IM, etc.) with the ancient “technology” of face to face interaction and 20th century developments in telephony and teleconferencing. First, let me tell you my story.
It took me about ten years to achive my goal of working from home. First I had to get kicked out of my comfortable cubicle where I worked in Colorado Springs for eighteen years. In 2003 I took a job in Fort Collins, a hundred miles from my house. I was testing Linux on HP servers and had to be in and out of the lab where we configured the servers for tests. I drove to work Monday and drove home Friday. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to keep work and family life separate.
I set about positioning my job duties so I could be home more. After nine months I was working four days away, one day in a local coffee shop (this was before broadband was available at my county residence) running tests on a computer in Texas. It took another nine months for me to settle into a routine of three days in the office, two at home. Finally, by late 2007 I was effectively working from home full-time. Even though my manager was in Colorado, the rest of his team worked in other parts of the world. He didn’t mind interacting with me by phone because that’s how he managed everyone else. Then I was tranferred to a manager in Houston. My current manager lives on the east coast. It’s been 160 days since I’ve set foot in my Fort Collins office.
So you can see that my vocational situation is the result of a gradual but deliberate transition to full-time teleworker. I’m living my dream! Now let me address your complaint about not getting any significant face to face interaction with professional colleagues. Between 2003 and 2005 I attended O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, Oregon. I saw how the free and open source software (FOSS) community copes with the isolation that you are talking about. FOSS is developed virtually, but when the geeks get together we party hard! Everyone talks about the value of the “hallway conference” — the time between formal sessions when relationships can be built and rejuvenated. I always made time to show up at the OSCON GPG key signing parties. (You and I have a mutual acquaintance: Greg Sabino Mullane and I exchanged key signatures.)
I changed jobs (same company) in 2005 to serve as a liaison between my office and a global group of peaked technical folks who consult with customers. We call them Linux Ambassadors. The Ambassadors get together face to face once a year, and I’m on staff to run that conference. I was also the program manager for a technical symposium in France. Our virtual team put on a one-week conference for about 70 technical professionals (Ambassadors and others) from countries around the world. I also single-handedly organized a worldwide conference in Fort Collins for about 150. If I have to say so myself, I know how to throw a party for geeks.
Do you see where I’m going with this? I know you’ve attended some conferences. When was the last time you did that? Too long, I think, based on the tone of your screed.
I work remotely with people from around the world, and most of that interaction is via email. One thing that keeps me motivated in my daily virtual work is knowing that once a year I can sit in a bar with my friends and colleagues and have a beer with them. (Sitting at a dinner table and sharing a meal is also a time-tested method of relationship-building that I enjoy.) Face to face interaction doesn’t have to be frequent, but it does have to happen. OSCON is only one example of conferences for geeks. I didn’t just watch the Star Trek movie the day it opened. I was at the Denver Starfest the month before. Talk about geek energy! (Ask me sometime about the 1977 Star Trek Convention in Portland, Oregon when Gene Roddenberry was speaking.)
If you can’t get together face to face, schedule a virtual conference. Earlier this year I was on staff for such an event. We used webcams to add a more personal connection between speakers and audience. Even conference calls with virtual room techonology help build connections between people. It’s best when people can travel to a old-fashioned conference, but virtual interaction is better than none at all. Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever being invited to a Citizendium conference call. Would you like me to facilitate one for you? I’ll do it for free. There’s a lot involved. Merely selecting the right time slot for a global commmunity can be challenging. A clear agenda for the call is essential. A strong facilitator makes all the difference. The agenda can include time for open discussion if you have an experienced facilitator who can prevent “dead air,” as radio broadcasters call it. Or pay someone, if you can afford it. Casey Hughes is a friend I’ve made through work on virtual events over the past year. He’s brilliant. If you want professional consultation for building communities in virtual environments I recommend him most highly. It might hearten you to know that my friendship with Casey is possible only because we’ve talked on the phone — we’ve never met face to face. You don’t have to feel isolated!
Twitter is a brilliant experiment that fills a gap between email / blogging and IM, making it possible to participate in IM conversations without the requirement of a real-time online connection. It’s practically real-time, and the 140-character limit discourages anyone from dominating the conversation too easily. (How many times have you scrolled past a burst of tweets from one person so you could move on to read what others have to say?) Archiving is what makes Twitter different from IM — in Twitter one is able to catch up on the history one has missed in real-time. (Experienced IRC users will correct me — IRC proxies offer the same feature. So I’ll add that Twitter’s other innovation is making the whole Twittersphere one monolothic IRC channel segmented by collections of followers and hashtags. It’s like walking into a giant cocktail party and then hopping from circle to circle of chatters at-will.)
Enough about Twitter. Real-time IM and phone conversations are needed to take relationships to a deeper level. I use the metaphor of a fire. One needs to rub the sticks together to get the wood burning. The exchange of ideas simply cannot happen fast enough by exchanging email, commenting on a blog, or throwing a tweet into the Twittersphere. My company relies too much on email, and sometimes I have to ask more than once for a colleague to stop answering my email with more email and get on the phone with me. (Introverted engineers who would rather use IRC than talk on the phone are a peeve of mine, too.) Sure, there are examples of people who have built relationships without real-time interaction. Pen pals did it all the time. Before 20th century transportation, correspondents might wait months — or even years — for a round trip exchange. But do you really want to dwell on those cases? Most of the stories have the same epiphany: “I’m so glad we finally got to meet face to face / talk on the phone.”
If you’ll bear with me for one more paragraph, I’d also like to add an observations about higher education. I hope college never goes completely virtual. My oldest son just matriculated and leaves for campus this fall, *sniff*. The most powerful memories of my life are from those four compressed, heady years when I got to hang around with a crowd of people in my exact demographic. As a professor, you know the value of face to face teaching better than me.
Comment by Tim Chambers — May 25, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
[...] think I understood all this from his original post, but perhaps I didn’t say it clearly, so I wantd to be sure to allow Larry to restate his [...]
Pingback by And another response « Random Thoughts — May 25, 2009 @ 10:36 pm
Hi, Larry. I definitely did read it. Twice, in fact; once when you posted the link on the Shared Knowing mailing list, and once before responding.
I don’t think you explicitly told people how they should react. However, the tone of the piece doesn’t suggest to me that you think there’s any room for reasonable disagreement on this. Your personal insights and tastes quickly roll up into assertions about societal universals and the right way for other people to live. You start with your own experiences, which is swell. But by the end, Web 2.0 is a menace to post-industrial civilization.
The only contrasting opinion you mention is Shirky’s, and you only mention him long enough to dismiss him as in favor of groupthink. Excluding, of course, the objections you set up so you can can knock them down. And although I didn’t read all of your follow-up comments, your main activity seems to be to tell people why they are wrong, missing the point, or not all that bright.
I’m not saying you don’t have a point, or perhaps several points. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be interested to hear your views. I’m just saying that this essay has left me substantially less inclined to agree with your thesis than before I sat down to read it. I am trying to tell you why, and how you could, from my perspective, do better.
It’s a little disappointing that the first way you try to explain my reaction is by assuming blatant negligence on my part.
Comment by William — May 25, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
Thank you for your response. My question was poorly phrased in that I didn’t mean to suggest that the benefits of facelessness had never occurred to you before in your life at all. I only meant in the context of this particular piece of “internal criticism.” It sounds to me (after I parse through the dripping sarcasm) that you have considered the benefits and found them insufficient against the disadvantages. I’m sorry if I popped a blood vessel in order to get us to the same understanding.
Larry, I agree with your parts of your argument. Really, we’re not that different in perspective. I hope you’ll continue along this line of thinking because the critique is valuable. I think if you take a more measured approach to responding to the comments on this post, you’ll find yourself landing on some (valuable) middle ground.
Comment by S.G. — May 25, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
Tim — wow — I’ll have to look at that tomorrow, what a tome!
William, I gather that your point is that I have stated my position as if I think there no room for reasonable disagreement, and you think (unless I am reading you incorrectly) it was wrong of me to take such an intransigent and harshly critical attitude. Well, believe it or not, I am quite sure that reasonable people could disagree with me. Moreover, while I’m sure you feel you’re in the right and that I should feel duly chastized, frankly your moralistic-sounding criticisms of me don’t have a lot of purchase if you don’t actually establish that my points lack the weight I put on them. So I’m afraid I’m not especially impressed by the personally critical tone you’ve taken. I think you’ve probably misunderstood my tone and attitude, which you’ve taken it upon yourself to criticize. If I knew you, or if I understood and agreed about what you’re talking about, I might take your criticisms more seriously.
S.G. — thanks for the post — I will refrain from commenting further on the fact that I seem to be so prone to hurting people’s feelings. Perhaps I should be gentler; perhaps I don’t know my own rhetorical strength. I don’t know!
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 26, 2009 @ 12:03 am
[...] • Ira Socol’s post The Width of the World is an interesting read about social media tools. I don’t entirely agree with all his points, but he’s started a decent discussion about groupthink, time-wasting, and human relationships (arguing, largely, against Larry Sanger’s blog post here). [...]
Pingback by notes from the interblags — May 26, 2009 @ 8:34 am
I just noticed this from Aaron Swartz: he’s going to drop off the face of the Internet for a month. I know where he’s coming from. Hat tip from this blog post, about which, more later maybe.
Comment by Larry Sanger — May 27, 2009 @ 10:12 am
I just twitted myself with excitement! Web 2.0 is just MLM version 161,432. It’s all hype.
Comment by Scott — May 28, 2009 @ 5:41 pm
Re. #29. I gave up social media for Lent. When Easter came, I wasn’t like a junkie with a jones. I got back into the scene gradually. I am more picky about how I use Twitter as a result, too. My “time off” reassured me that my life wasn’t going to fall apart if I didn’t keep up with Twitter, Facebook, and my RSS feeds. I’m going to give it all up again when I go completely offline in the middle of June. I’m looking forward to the break. But I take breaks whenever I need them.
Comment by Tim Chambers — May 28, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
Groupthink is negatively effecting my career.
I’m a web developer who’s been turned down for multiple jobs because I didn’t use facebook or twitter. This wasn’t an issue 2 years ago. Now people look at me like I’m from the moon when I tell them I don’t have a twitter account and my facebook profile isn’t up to date because I don’t use it. Never mind that I’m a great developer…
“We become irrelevant if we’re not mainstream; and you’re bound not to be, because true individualism rarely runs in the mainstream.”
I have become irrelevant because I’m not mainstream…
Comment by allusive — June 15, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
A perfect example of how social media has exacerbated real life groupthink is the 9/11 conspiracy/NWO conspiracy. Since the internet makes it so easy for people to interface with groups of the same opinion, this completely false system of ideas has become infectiously widespread.
Comment by allusive — June 15, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
happy birthday!
Comment by wikifan — July 15, 2009 @ 6:15 am
I love the potential of the social web, but since ANYONE can participate, I am just reminded that I find a whole lot of people out there are, well, not worth it. I have a childhood friend, for example, who is constantly posting on twitter whenever she gets a cup of coffee or walks to her porch swing. NOT interesting after the first time, oh no. So the web is just like any crowd–there might be a few I gravitate to, but the rest don’t interest me very much, and I’ve had to find new ways to manage my time in there.
These sitessure do suck up a lot of energy if one lets them. I’ve learned to gird my loins. Thanks for articulating this so well, Larry!
Comment by Pat Palmer — August 2, 2009 @ 9:18 am
Although web 2.0 may have downsides, it has indeed been a revolution. I’ve had a blog for 3 years now and found endless old friends through social networking.
Comment by Collaboration Cathy — November 25, 2009 @ 12:53 pm