I don’t think I need to stress how much the Internet has become a part of our daily lives. As college students, we are probably among the highest in Internet usage among all demographics. Between research and schoolwork, and the migration of our social lives onto sites like Facebook and Twitter, the Internet is now a veritable domain of reality.
Some would go so far as to say, “If I can’t watch it on YouTube, tweet it or comment about it on Facebook — it didn’t happen.”
Our generation’s cyber-addiction clearly has advantages and disadvantages. What I think is interesting, and probably under-explored, is how our Internet usage affects the way we think. For instance, let’s look at the rules that govern Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site.
The type of thinking it takes to convey a popular tweet, in 140 characters or less, is highly distinct. The goal is to make a poignant observation or to comment on daily life extremely tersely. Within this communications system, your point has to be succinct; there is no space, quite literally, for developed thoughts or processed arguments.
Think about this. In the pre-Cyber Age, social discourse consisted of pamphlets like Thomas Paine’s “The Rights of Man” and Martin Luther’s “Ninety-Five Theses.” Where would we be if these thinkers constrained themselves to 140 characters?
“Catholic Church is corrupt. Starting Protestant Reformation, who’s in? #occupyeverything.”
Which brings us, of course, to the hashtag. I’ve meditated a bit on the connective symbol, and I’m curious if it’s anything but a uniquely modern exercise in abstraction, or the desire to realize a shared experience. With hashtagging (my own neologism?) we express an innate desire to connect our experiences to others’. It is sort of a “Who’s with me?”
With the preeminence of Twitter and Facebook, we’ve sacrificed fully developed thoughts and, consequently, our attention spans. But there must be some advantages, right?
For one thing, the ease and accessibility of the Internet, from social networks to Wikipedia, allows for more overall information consumption and dissemination. In other words, rather than one thinker or publication having a profound influence on many, we have a chorus of voices having little impact, if any.
Based on these observations, my general diagnosis is that we are suffering from a surplus of cyber content without any clear system for filtering and organization. And when so much of our lives is now lived on the Internet, that shouldn’t be the case.
The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the right blog entry or YouTube upload can spur revolutions and topple governments. Less globally, the bytes of information on the Internet, from menus to historical records to up-and-coming bands, are the puzzle pieces that form our lives. So why can’t we manage to keep track of ourselves on the Web?
I want to tell you about one approach that’s been really helpful for me: a website called www.clipix.com. Clipix allows you to keep track of everything you see on the Internet in a graphic interactive fashion. This way, you’re both super productive and never lose track of those awesome pictures of cats yawning. It’s sort of like that drab bookmarks bar you have in your browser, but efficiently updated to accommodate the fast-paced, ever-changing ways you use the Internet.
It’s completely free and has revolutionized my time on the Web. I can now easily keep track of helpful sites for my classes, cool songs, things I find on Amazon and literally any other site out there.
#wwwproblemzsolved? Could be.