Behind the curve as ever, I read about Andrew Keen and his “anti-web2.0” stance in the Observer. Thanks, also to Matt Buckland, for pointing me at it.
“The author and entrepreneur has stunned his adopted country with a book that accuses bloggers and other evangelists for the web of destroying culture, ruining livelihoods and threatening to make consumers of new media regress into ‘digital narcissism’.”
I think Mr Keen is doing well at generating PR and that’ll make sure he sells lots of copies of his new book. Clever chap. He’s also acting as “the opposition” and every power needs an opposition to keep it on its toes.
But there’s a lot of hot air here too.
A lot of the stuff that people worry about is teen culture. Grown-ups have always thought that teens were doing something shocking that would undermine society etc etc. And much of the blogging/community stuff that he seems to object to is no exception. Young people do dumb things and think they are clever. And they do things that look dumb and are actually clever. It’s all mixed up in there somewhere. And then they grow up, their revolution becomes mainstream and they start worrying about what the next wave are up to.
It’ll all come out in the wash.
The problem comes when we try to tar everyone with the same brush. In interaction design you divide up your target audience – using personas usually. And you don’t expect all your users to want the same things or do the same things. Some TV programmes appeal to more mature audiences, some are for kids. Some books appeal more to women, some more to men.
It’s much the same here. Some college students will blog avidly about trivia. But that doesn’t mean we all have to. Or that we all have to read it.
But a few things I do believe:
- There is far too much to read, and I don’t know what’s important. As a result I read almost nothing. I need to go find something that’ll digest stuff for me.
- Anyone who wants to keep up will have to spend hours every night reading, instead of watching TV. And wasn’t it watching TV that was supposed to be rotting our minds, according to the previous generation…?
- Most of the people who are not talented at communication and authorship will not get a big audience because people will not enjoy their stuff. And the ones who are talented deserve a chance to prove themselves without having to slog through mindless “cat-up-tree” stories on local rags. It’s a free market thing. The survival of the fittest.
- I do believe in the power of the network and the wisdom of crowds. I think that mechanisms that let us connect and share quickly, in large numbers and with some kind of non-hierarchical structure enable us to do things that we, the human race, have never been able to achieve before. That is exciting. And I think it’s good for the world economy too. Read “The wisdom of crowds” to see the evidence that this stuff works.
- Alas, just like in democracy, you actually have to do your bit and vote. So that means I’m condemned to wading through trivia so that I can lend my support to the good stuff. Bother.
So. Well done, Andrew Keen, for causing a stir. Well done, everybody else, for driving humanity to new levels of achievement though Darwinian crap-filtering. Keep up the good work. I’m off to stare at a blank wall for a while.