Tech Town, NC

I am tired of novelty. Objects of mild amusement are off-putting. Anything lauded as “must see” is suspect. Twitter Trends are to be avoided at all costs. I have no time for these baubles of the brain. I am ready for a post-novelty world.

Lately I have the feeling that much of the internet exists for the sole purpose that someone will convince me to “check it out” once and and then add it to the pile of discarded lolcats. The act of “trying” something is now the whole experience of that thing. And perhaps the final, perfect, manifestation of this arrived in the form of Chatroulette.

Chatroulette was nothing more than a one-off experiment to answer the question “What if we mashed up webcams and roulette?” The answer is, well, that (and, of course, naked lonely men). In a sense, the whole of the internet is becoming a game of thought-roulette. Now that Chatroulette is over we can “next” the service itself and fix ourselves on Lebron James. And then something else, and then…

Or is there a way out?

I think there is. There is a broader trend appearing in anecdotes and in recent data – More connectivity is not always better. People are realizing there is a lot more to learn about productivity than how to set up IMAP email on their phones. The proper place of technology must be learned and relearned all the time. These consequences are being acknowledged in sociology, neurology, and academics.

Nick Carr has done eloquent and, ironically, thoughtful work on the increasing
shallowness of cognition. Some would disagree, but I’m fairly convinced there is damage being done. So what interests me is what comes next – What do we do about it?

We can adapt. Not in biological ways, of course. But in cultural ways we can, and will. There is always pushback against technology, but that pushback is no longer from mere Luddites rejecting newness out of fear and ignorance. The pushback is coming from advocates of technology, and coming out of their research and experience with it. This represents a big shift in sentiment – The new critics aren’t anti-internet. They’re just pro-thought.

Fred Stutzman is one of the most authoritative voices on this and I can’t do better than to point you to some of his (focused) thoughts on the subject. But while he’s written much on devices & software, the “hard” aspects of tech, I’m talking more of the shift in the “soft” aspects as well – the content we produce with these tools and the culture this content creates.

As the internet matures and content blends together in text, videos & games it becomes an endless single document that we flip through continuously. That has been fun so far, but, as I’ve said, we’re beginning to reject it. There’s too much, the plot is too fractured. We like narratives that make sense. We are fatigued and in need of boundaries again.

This fatigue has serious implications. We are less curious about important things because our attention is maxed out. The president’s first oval office address was hardly a blip on the national consciousness. What Oval Office Speech, you say? Oh nevermind, but have you SEEN the Nike ad for the World Cup? (Uh, duh, like 10 times already).

But as we reach our individual saturation points our minds begin to crave substance. I can feel it happening to mine when I cringe at obvious link-bait headlines or delete the latest e-mail forward from my uncle. The likes of Nick Carr, Fred Stutzman and others are reaching their saturation points too. As we reach these limits we’ll find ways to cope and, in the process, develop new cultural traditions. I’m not sure what they are yet, but I am optimistic about them. I look forward to stopping the thought-roulette wheel and getting a bit of my brain back.

So as we go forward I’ll try to post thoughts on post-novelty traditions. And the next time you see a shiny link begging to be clicked, I dare you not to.

——

* Updates
- David Brooks has a good column discussing the same themes and postulating that and “Internet counterculture” may develop.

- As I was writing this, a post went up on TechCrunch about something even more puerile than Chatroulette. Check it out on your way to the next thing.

** More updates
- This is exactly the kind of thinking I’m trying to fight. OK, not “exactly” – I admit authentic newness is necessary and good – but the systematic contrivance of novelty is what has pushed me to my saturation blogging point.