A Leg Up on Information

The digital communications technology that was once imagined as a universe of transparent and perpetual illumination, in which cancerous falsehoods would perish beneath a saturation bombardment of irradiating data, has instead generated a much murkier and verification-free habitat where a google-generated search will deliver an electronic page on which links to lies and lunacy appear in identical format as those to truths and sanity. But why should we ever have assumed that technology and reason would be mutually self-reinforcing? The quickest visit to say, a site called Stormfront will persuade you that the demonic is in fact the best customer of the electronic. pp. 86-87

Schama, Simon. 2010. Scribble, scribble, scribble: writings on politics, ice cream, Churchill, and my mother. New York: Ecco.

Simon Schama’s most recent book had many thought-provoking quotes in it - and this one in particular got me to thinking about the information that we share and consume online.

How to Open a New Book

This has been floating around the internet for a while, and I'd like to share with you some thoughts about the image and why it has such interest now. First, though, here's the graphic:

Digital Memory and Identity

Jen recently shared this article from the New York Times with me:

The Web Means the End of Forgetting, by Jeffrey Rosen

I'll be up front with you: this article really raised my ire. So if you will indulge me, good reader, let me share with you some of my thoughts (previously and briefly expressed here) about this article, and online social interaction in general. I have a question for you, reader, which I hope you answer in the comments: are people totally oblivious to what they and others post about them online? Or, do they not care? This question came up frequently while I was reading the article.

Make My Media Less Social!

While browsing through my Evernote client earlier, I came upon an article featured in the New York Times:

Managing Reputations on Social Sites, by Teddy Wayne

I have many Facebook friends between the ages of 18 to 29 - as a matter of fact, I would say that that age group is the vast majority of my Facebook friends. Quite to the contrary of what Wayne says, I see people in this demographic sharing more on Facebook, not less. Of course, this is not true of all my Facebook friends, but there are some about which, frankly I know way too much.