The digital age. It's not really that bad.

There's an article in today's New York Times that argues the internet is killing serendipity, the fortunate discovery of something we never knew we wanted to find.  Much of the argument is based around the slow disappearance of physical, tangible symbols of culture (books, CDs, etc) and an emerging groupthink within social networks (kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy when people are organizing themselves around common interests I would argue).  

This feels like another one of those Andrew Keen et al arguments that the internet is dumbing culture and humanity down, and restricting, rather than liberating, us.  I'd tackle Damon's point of view with my own and one I know many of my friends share: without the internet, we'd be far poorer people in terms of the breadth and depth of our experiences.  I know I wouldn't have discovered the range and depth of music, film, books, etc. that make my life pretty amazing without the internet.  I know, from a work perspective, that planning would still be cast (and practiced) in a rather narrow light than the many different ways being practiced now, built upon the straws of thinking from outside the discipline that we have chanced upon.

More importantly,  I think it points to the anomaly in culture that was the last century. We continue to look at the changing world through the lens of our immediate past experience. Taking a broader longitudinal perspective, the behavior we see nowadays - peer to peer relations, friend recommendations, doing stuff with other people - is not new, rather it is how humans have tended to live.  The difference is that now the internet has removed geographic and temporal constraints.  Let's embrace what technology can do for us, not worry about oddities being discarded.  It's an immense force for a better culture, and for helping us live richer lives.

Comments

[Gavin Heaton]

My friend Ian calls this "directed serendipity". The thing is, your experience is dictated by the people in your network. If you feel it is dumbing you down, it probably says something about you and the company that you keep ;)

[Dylan]

I am a huge champion of the internet and the positive impact it has had on society, never mind my life. There are seemingly few Luddites that would disagree with this. I do think, however, that there is real value in serendipity and randomness. With the advent of the semantic web, and as search is refined, is there not a worry that the randomness or serendipity of browsing or searching the web will decline? Can we safeguard of preserve this? Do we even want to?

[Meg]

Absolutely! I have met so many interesting people online through my blog, flickr, youtube, myspace and twitter. But maybe that's just it: you have to be in it to win it. If all you use the net for is googling recipes and looking up the weather, you won't find what you're really looking for.

[faris]

agreed mate!

i hate this recidivist reactionary let's rip off plato's phaedrus thing about writing making us dumb because we're scared of the internet nonsense ;)

the internet creates meaningful coincidences

http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/meaningful-coincidences.html

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