Social Recursion

Courtesy of Joe Heller

With the prevalence of social hypermedia (Myspace, Instant Messenger, Facebook, Twitter) it seems as if we’ve continued on this trend of ‘globalization’ not only globally, but locally.  That doesn’t make sense right?  What I mean is- our lives and the lives of our friends are starting to become increasingly intertwined as we simultaneously integrate all aspects of our being with technology.  (Think of the world shrinking- Globalization.  This not only brings strangers from around the globe closer to us, but also our already-close-enough friends and family).  Digg updates your Twitter which updates your Facebook and vice-versa*.  Its Social (application) Recursion.  An Infinite Loop.

At the same time, it seems like we no longer have a Myspace persona or an IRC persona.. they’re all bleeding together into an “Internet Persona”.  Because of these ‘linkages’ in data, it seems that anyone can find out information about us just by following the data trail.  Creepy right?  Then why do we keep pumping our precious life stories into these social media websites?  Is it that we realize our lives are fleeting and we’re trying to leave a footprint albeit digital?  Are Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter really so engaging that it is impossible to disconnect ourselves from them?  Eventually will we spend more time online than in-person?! And then never want to come back to the real world after rescuing an alien race and fighting an epic battle for a girl resulting in the abandonment of man-kind!? Crazy.

We may THINK we’re updating our page on “what we’re doing”, but what we’re really doing is updating our page.  We’re recursing.   When will it end?  Whats the exit condition?  This is Web 2.0.  Web 3.0 promises to be even more integrated into our lives.. only we wont manually be updating our Facebook: context-aware smartphones will do it for us automatically.  We’ll be eating dinner at a fancy restaurant and all our friends will know what we ordered, and who we’re with.  We’re not that far off now.  I think only then can we get away from this “social recursion” – when we’re not actively taking part in it we can continue to live our lives without our thumbs on the Tweet-pad.

*Bonus:

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook finally announced that they will be integrating all of their services into one application.  Its called You-Twit-Face.

Origin of the Tweet: Social Exhibitionism

I never really understood blogging culture.  Actually I still dont.  Unless you are writing something useful, like a tutorial, it seems like people just want to force their opinion down other people’s throats, but since they cant, they just document them on the web.  I guess it started with Journals (you know that thing u write on pen and pad), where people emotionally vomited onto the pages, knowing the journal was for their eyes only, but secretly hoping someone would stumble upon it and learn of their inner torments.  Lame.

Then came MSN.  People started altering the name field to reflect what was happening in their actual lives.  You’d have the people who would put lyrics from songs in their names, believing that they were being subtly cryptic, but knowing full well that these lyrics blatantly describe their dashboard confessional-like emotions- like the perfect girl who never notices them, or the meat cleaver left in their heart (real MSN name from a friend of mine).  Then came the sub-name… an extension of your name, and a dedicated place to script you woes.   Some used it to tell u what they were doing at every minute, if u really cared to look, but lots still used it as shelving for emotional baggage.

Cue the Facebook status.  Now you can force your friends to see whats new in your life just by logging in.  However, there are other things to look at on Facebook, so it was never the defining feature.

Enter twitter. “Hey, lets take the Facebook status and wall, and make it into its own website. Awesome. And do you like birds?  I’m for ‘em!”  Even more lame.  I think the cartoon Super News said it best:

Ok… so it seems like Twitter is just randomly bragging about your unexceptional life

And now you can integrate your facebook with your twitter with your blog with your myspace so that you can update them all simultaneously!  Barf.

I’m not really sure how big of exhibitionists we were before MSN, Facebook, or Twitter, but it seems like these services just make it too easy for us to be, and really force it in your face.  Although I realize I’m being a complete hypocrite, spewing my opinion for an audience of none (on Twitter and through a Blog!), I’d like to think I’m better than the average blogger because at least i KNOW what i’m doing is pointless.

peas out.