The Way the Internet Portrays Me

With the overwhelming growth of technology these days, one has to step back and reflect how it is affecting us and our relationships with others and even our expectations of each other. In the book titled You are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier expresses some of his concerns about today's internet usage.

As a computer science pioneer Lanier used to be a huge supporter of the internet, but since the growth and evolution of the Internet has taken place, Lanier has become disenchanted with the online world. While Lanier states some extreme opinions in regards to today's Internet, I have to say that he is not completely off base. His main concern is that as more online platforms for the Self arise, such as Facebook, we are producing a limited conception of who we really are. He claims that Facebook has limited our devotions of individuality because we can only express ourselves in the way the software will allow us to, which means our selfhood is being downplayed. In other words, if these large domains are incapable of capturing us, some of the Self is lost.

While some might argue that it's not the technology's fault, but rather the user's fault, Lanier would counter-argue saying that Facebook limits your expression to a single format. Rather than using a single online platform, Lanier is encouraging his readers to invest more in what they produce and put online. The following are a select few of his suggestions (pg. 21):

• If you put effort into Wikipedia articles, put even more effort into using your personal voice and expression outside of the wiki to help attract people who don't yet realize that they are interested in the topics you contributed to.

• Create a website that expresses something about who you are that won't fit into the template available to you on a social networking site.

• Post a video once in a while that took you one hundred times more time to create than it takes to view.

• Write a blog post that took weeks of reflection before you heard the inner voice that needed to come out.

• If you are twittering, innovate in order to find a way to describe your internal state instead of trivial external events, to avoid the creeping danger of believing that objectively described events define you, as they would define a machine.

 In a previous blog I posted about Sherry Turkle and her views of the "Innovation of Lonliness". Her views support Lanier's feelings/ ideas about today's internet. And I agree with both of them that we are limiting ourselves by conforming to a pre-structured platform and editing out the parts of us that we don't want people to see. I fully support Lanier's call for reflection, so that we can all keep our individuality and not loose site of who we really are.