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Post by joeweston on Aug 9, 2011 21:39:43 GMT -5
Reading this article the only word that comes to mind is "2009." This article is very 2009. This article is aggressively 2009. This article is flamboyantly 2009. This article still has it's election day Obama-cover of the Chicago Tribune in its living room and is blissfully unaware of Ke$ha. This article is horrifically dated, and doesn't any attempt to hide it. Deresiewicz writes, "The MySpace page, with its shrieking typography and clamorous imagery, has replaced the journal and the letter as a way of creating and communicating one's sense of self." I can hardly remember the days where MySpace was the topical form of social networking. The fears that the internet's habit of creating overnight celebrities hurts society are now a dime a dozen, making it very hard to take Deresiewicz seriously as he joins the mass chorus in decrying the mass.
What's more, the article misdiagnoses the cause of our mass-membership mentality and cravings for celebrity. Yes, we each pursue our own nuggets of 140 character notoriety. Everyone believes in the back of their heads their youtube channel might make them the next lonelygirl15, the next Smosh, or that greatest testament of the overnight cyber-celebrity Justin Bieber. But this isn't the internet's fault. You could just as easily pin the blame on reality tv, dubbing ours the American Idol generation instead of the Social Network generation. Both reflect the same need for attention. As Deresiewicz puts it, "This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible." In truth, I view the fears of isolation, whether you call it loneliness or solitude, to be merely extensions of our innate impulses, that wax and wane between generations.
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Post by dowellharmon on Aug 18, 2011 21:16:22 GMT -5
Joe I agree almost completely with what you say. This article in no way contains relative data. There obviously isn’t an end to solitude because this guy must have been living under a rock for the past 6 years. The Myspace aspect caught my attention as well, which is the main source of my skepticism. Your couple of sentences, “But this isn't the Internet's fault. You could just as easily pin the blame on reality TV, dubbing ours the American Idol generation instead of the Social Network generation. Both reflect the same need for attention,” really do sum up the status of our generation. We are built to absorb and feed on attention. The sad thing is, some people mistake this for a lack of alone time. You say the want for attention is just a natural cycle, so does that mean you think that we want attention just for the attention, or because we don’t want to be alone? In my opinion, I think it is a little bit of both at least, because, it might be a cycle, but I think it is also a growing fear of solitude.
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Post by megancoleman on Aug 19, 2011 16:16:43 GMT -5
Joe and Dowell, you make a tremendous point that I enjoyed reading because it was new and insightful. We could easily be dubbed the American Idol generation, we have been apart of American Idol for far many more years than the social networking era we seem to associate ourselves with. And my answer to Dowell's question is similar, I think everyone wants attention, and we are getting it through the reality television and social networking. But we do not like to be alone, because some people especially are dependent on others and have separation anxiety. I think Joe also makes a great point by saying that this was written in 2009, we are now in 2011 and so much has happened in those two years, which personally seems like an eternity ago, in the two years so much has happened, the rise and fall of many stars, and myspace fell off the map while Facebook and Twitter became prominent ways of social networking with one another. Technology changes what seems to be everyday, so new technology has even come about in the last two years, Deresiewicz's claims are inaccurate in todays times.
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Post by marcmanheim on Aug 19, 2011 19:10:41 GMT -5
Joe I understand what you are saying here, and you make a valid point about us pinning the blame on the internet when there are many other culprits, but I do have a disagreement. While I agree that there are many reasons for the solitude drain, that doesn't mean the internet isn't a culprit. Among all of the changes that have occurred within the past two decades, none of them have had a greater influence on communication (and therefore, anti-solitude) than the internet. With it, we can always find a form of company. Now, does this mean that solitude would not have deteriorated if the internet had not come into existence? Of course not. Like you said, there are plenty of other causes. All I'm saying here is that we can’t declare the authors’ points null as there is some truth to the fact that the internet encourages solitude drainage. It is human nature to want to be social, and the easier it is to do so, the more we will do it.
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Post by Jacob Winkler on Aug 19, 2011 21:43:56 GMT -5
My dear Marcus. Our good friend Josiah isn't saying that the internet is innocent in the matter of our nation's lack of solitude. He's simply pointing out the over exaggerated focus of the article on the internet. There are numerous other hideous solitude vanquishing technologies which are much more significant than the internet. Furthermore, the article is obviously dated, which lowers the value of its contents significantly. However, I find that very interesting. There aren't many things which are considered dated in just under 3 years after it's release. For instance, a 3 year old car is still very relevant and useful in today's society. However, the internet and the cyber norms are quite different in their aging process. Joe mentions the article's idea that Myspace is still relevant. A simply laughable notion. In less than 3 years we've made the full migration from Myspace to Facebook, and we're currently in the process of moving to the next social networking site, Google plus. The point I'm raising is that the speed in which the internet adapts is remarkable. We see the rise of superstars all the time going from nobody's to the pop-star on your television faster than a simple cough turns into a world wide pandemic!
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Post by joeweston on Aug 19, 2011 22:19:53 GMT -5
I appreciate the input this post has drawn from all of you. Responding to "The End of Solitude" was my favorite part of the summer reading, and I'm glad it got some notice. Because of this satisfaction I'd like to do my part and clear up the point I was trying to make in the original post and perhaps stoke some further discussion about this topic.
While I had a lot of fun lambasting the article for being outdated, the fact that Deresiewicz wrote about Myspace isn't what really hurts his case. Rather it is the irresponsible narrowing of blame for his "end of solitude." Jake's right, I certainly don't think the Internet doesn't play a part in the trend toward immersion that the article loudly decries. However, social networking doesn't cause our needs to be adored or at least noticed, it's just the best way we've found yet. To blame this desire on facebook, smartphones, or any other modern amenity betrays a misunderstanding of how any new development in mass media just makes it easier for us to try to become in some small way famous. Moving further, I have no doubt that fifty years from now there will be curmudgeonly social critics of our generation voicing their shock and alarm at how terrifyingly dangerous this or that new technology is for our youth. Just the same, then as now they will be overbearingly wrong if their fears are so confined.
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Post by jacobwinkler on Aug 19, 2011 22:45:41 GMT -5
My dear Marcus. Our good friend Josiah isn't saying that the internet is innocent in the matter of our nation's lack of solitude. He's simply pointing out the over exaggerated focus of the article on the internet. There are numerous other hideous solitude vanquishing technologies which are much more significant than the internet. Furthermore, the article is obviously dated, which lowers the value of its contents significantly. However, I find that very interesting. There aren't many things which are considered dated in just under 3 years after it's release. For instance, a 3 year old car is still very relevant and useful in today's society. However, the internet and the cyber norms are quite different in their aging process. Joe mentions the article's idea that Myspace is still relevant. A simply laughable notion. In less than 3 years we've made the full migration from Myspace to Facebook, and we're currently in the process of moving to the next social networking site, Google plus. The point I'm raising is that the speed in which the internet adapts is remarkable. We see the rise of superstars all the time going from nobody's to the pop-star on your television faster than a simple cough turns into a world wide pandemic!
*Reposted from my actual account
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