Notes on the social web and... whatever.
the neverending work of social networking
“ The problem with a public-facing Twitter stream in events like this is that it FORCES the audience to pay attention the backchannel. So even audience members who want to focus on the content get distracted. Most folks can’t multitask that well. And even if I had been slower and less dense, my talks are notoriously too content-filled to make multi-tasking possible for the multi-tasking challenged. This is precisely why I use very simplistic slides that evokes images for the visual types in the room without adding another layer of content. But the Twitter stream fundamentally adds another layer of content that the audience can’t ignore, that I can’t control. And that I cannot even see. ”
“ 20 minutes of being punched in the face, kicked in the stomach, and the shameful sensations one gets when one is forced to watch a Lars von Trier film. That’s how I felt at Web2.0 Expo. ”
I Love Alaska
August 4, 2006, the personal search queries of 650,000 AOL (America Online) users accidentally ended up on the Internet, for all to see. These search queries were entered in AOL’s search engine over a three-month period. After three days AOL realized their blunder and removed the data from their site, but the sensitive private data had already leaked to several other sites.
I love Alaska tells the story of one of those AOL users. We get to know a religious middle-aged woman from Houston, Texas, who spends her days at home behind her TV and computer. Her unique style of phrasing combined with her putting her ideas, convictions and obsessions into AOL’s search engine, turn her personal story into a disconcerting novel of sorts.
“ Q: “Cosa pensa dei programmi di recupero per la “dipendenza» da internet?”
Sherry Turkle: “Non amo molto il termine dipendenza. Credo che prima di ricorrere a questa parola dovremmo porci altre domande: cosa spinge gli utenti ad utilizzare la rete in maniera compulsiva? Cosa trovano online che non riescono a trovare nel resto della loro vita? La vita sullo schermo ci dice molte cose su ciò che vogliamo, su quali siano i bisogni della vita reale. Se la si chiama semplicemente dipendenza, si rischia di non vedere questioni più profonde: il nostro comportamento online è una sorta di test della personalità, rivela chi siamo e quali sono i nostri bisogni. Spesso le persone svolgono online quelle azioni che non sono in grado di esprimere nella vita reale. ”
