tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post2363992227285582523..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: The end of introspection (and why it matters)Kurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-41910664408796061792016-04-25T20:27:22.527-04:002016-04-25T20:27:22.527-04:00Steve,
Nice to hear from you. And, thanks for the...Steve,<br /><br />Nice to hear from you. And, thanks for the thoughtful comment and for pointing me to Turkle's book.<br /><br />My work requires that I spend many hours on a computer in a typical day. But almost none of it is spent on social media. Rather the Internet is just a very convenient research tool that facilitates my writing and enables me to communicate with intelligent thinkers in many fields.<br /><br />We all face the question of how to present ourselves digitally for professional or personal purposes if we have access to the Internet. Increasingly, one's connectedness (and thus profitability as a performer, a writer or even a graphic artist) may depend on gathering a larger and larger group of online followers. Often quality matters less than quantity as followers will pay more attention to those who stimulate them with tweets and posts more often.<br /><br />If satisfaction is defined by the number of times one receives stimuli, then I am in a losing game as an online figure. But I believe I've found an audience that values depth and genuine analysis and regards those qualities as worthwhile even though they may come only once a week from me (with occasional breaks). And, I suspect that this audience spends a lot of time, probably the majority of their time, doing activities that have nothing with social media and the Internet. They are out actually doing things and experiencing other people.<br /><br />How did I learn to see the computer as my servant and not as my master? I think it definitely has something to do with reaching maturity before the personal computer was in widespread use. By that time in my life, it was just another tool to be mastered to do my work and achieve my objectives. For those who grow up playing computer games, dwelling on social media sites, tapping out text messages, the computer and its extensions such as the cellphone are more a way of life than a tool.<br /><br />How could that view be altered? I cannot say for certain. But I think it will be important to figure out in the not-to-distant future.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-85308437066085173972016-04-24T15:48:49.710-04:002016-04-24T15:48:49.710-04:00Thanks, Kurt. I think it's worth considering S...Thanks, Kurt. I think it's worth considering Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together. An MIT psychiatrist and ethnographer who studies human uses of technology, she documents both human encounters and human costs of reliance on social media. It's also good to know that some of her young subjects voluntarily go on fasts, finding endless loops of social media exhausting. The thing that I find interesting is that the constant control required in the online presentation of the self is not often edifying, and seems to be taxing. I'm reminded of Illich's sense of conviviality that springs from personal encounters and the generative sense of community which can be difficult to reproduce online. But I'm also often surprised by my autistic son's sociality online, which I think provides a dimension of interaction he finds so difficult in "real life." So there's that...Steve Rohsnoreply@blogger.com