Image by Emre Güven
I have come across quite an interesting article today (below is an abstract from it) - a take on social networks and blogging. I can't disagree with the author on many points and definitely think the society has changed a lot recently as far as privacy is concerned. It all made me think about what is applicable to me and what keeps me going with this blog. I'm quite interested in your thoughts about what blogging is for you as well of course :)
'...The explosion of social networking sites has promoted its own denunciations, jeremiads against the constant erasure of the boundaries between public and private. We have grown accustomed, if not inured, to previously 'intimate' exchanges or arguments being played out on the public stage, and many people blame the blogosphere for a proliferation of pathological narcissism and delusions of grandeur - not to mention delusions of reference, the misapprehension that we are the pre-Copernican center of our own infantile universes. Narcissism is the flipside of paranoia: it's not just that the world is after me, it's that the world IS after me.
From this perspective, social networking simply encourages us to blather banalities and mistake them for profundity, while also separating us from the actual human contact that the networks replace, and fostering a fantasy of control over our environments that life will not respect. It promotes a delusional egocentrism on a spectrum with The X Factor Syndrome, the conviction that we are, or should be, the stars of our own show, creating a society of grotesque Norma Desmonds waiting for the close-up that never comes.
But it is also true that the impulse to share is a primal one. We transfrom our feelings into representations: language, music, painting, sculpture, dance, rituals, dreams - and tweets...'
Pop Magazine, Issue 21, Autumn-Winter 2009
6 comments:
Hi dear! Well, social networking, a other forms of technologies, are useful tools if we use them with a bit of brain, ie. Facebook for example, you can use it for blather banalities or to keep in touch with friends.
Of course, it would be much better to meet friends across a table with a cup of coffee!
Have a wonderful Sunday!
I've noticed that a lot of bloggers have moved away from their country of origin. I know not all - but you and I have, and quite a few others. I wonder if this somehow makes blogging - having a virtual community - more relevant to us?
Olga, I have a question you may be able to answer. I have a few pieces of embroidery on my post today which I thought might be Hungarian, but now someone has suggested they might be Ukranian. I wonder if you have any opinion on the subject?
Olga,
Your post is very interesting. You are mentioning a subject which I’ve thought about many times. I’d split my opinion in three main sections. 1st the inevitable question: Why do we have public blogs and not private ones? I guess the answer is related with our alter-ego. I guess we all intimately want someone to read us. That’s the fun part. I think that there’s always some vanity associated to a public exposure, where you show what you think comfortably hidden behind a computer. The machine turns to be your secret door to a huge world ready to be explored. Sometimes we have the enormous luck to find beautiful people like you which lead us to wonderful friendships. Other times you find twisted minds and strange people you thought it would be impossible to exist. 2dly It depends on us to promote or not our private life. We both share the same opinion regarding our trips. As far as I’m concerned I’ve been mixing some fictional writing with my trips and the result was to set free some “wild imagination” always keeping in mind the barrier between private and public. Many people may believe that everything we write reflects exactly how we are, but that’s the fun part of blogging. You never know when true and fiction begins and fiction should begin when you feel that your private life may be “in danger” of exposure. 3d Social networking has several possibilities of privacy in spite of knowing that there aren’t any save nowadays. I’ve been in some of those networks with enormous pleasure because that’s a very good way of keeping in touch, on a daily basis, with your best friends. The important thing is to turn the network as a mean to promote friendship outdoors and not to be strict to the computer. I’ve manage very good results on planning several encounters with my best friends. It can be really fun.
All my love Olga and London is a week nearer. TI
Hi Olga,
I'm not sure if you are familiar with Stephen Colbert but he just did a segment that is somewhat related to this topic.
He called it "Cognoscor Ergo Sum - I am known therefore I am" http://tiny.cc/3FCqd
Enjoy :)
Cheers,
Kristian
TI, so true about keeping in touch :) We have you because of this blog. It is a proof it wasn't created in vain :P
Kristian, this is awesome! And so true about us not being known for who we are... Cause, yes, that IS kinda personal..
Post a Comment