BookyMedia

Observations of two disillusioned old-media churnalists

Jun 15, 2009

Can’t see the buffet for the cheese sandwiches

: Image by YankeeInCanada via Flickr

If Alexander Graham Bell owned a time machine when he invented the telephone all those years ago, would he have bothered putting in all that work? In my 29 years I’ve had more than my fair share of what others would call pointless telephone conversations, just laughing, quoting my favourite TV shows and sharing the minutae of my day. Of course he would. The phone may have been used to call in randsom demands in kidnappings, but it has also been used to avoid war and everything inbetween. It’s not the medium that’s important, it’s the message. Yes Twitter allows users to post nonsense – see recent BNP-related posts – but it has also been used to rally Iranian protestors attempting to see democracy overcomes a fixed election. And everything inbetween, including yes, what people are having for lunch.

Yet this banal describing of your day’s activity – what head of social media at Guardian, Meg Pickard, calls the cheese sandwich effect – is what naysayers keep focussing on.

Pickard, whose speech at the Royal Instituition I’ve just left, came under fire from one audience member who was very aggressive about the cheese sandwich effect, saying kids are ‘wasting time’ on this ’social experiment’.

But what I fail to see is what’s new? Kids have always socialised in ways adults can’t understand. And, perhaps more importantly, who’s to say which topics and methods of conversation are pointless? I have two step-kids who are six and seven and both want to join a social network all of their friends are on. Would I prefer them to be physically socializing? Yes, but it isn’t an either or situation and it isn’t my decision what type of social interaction best strengthens their bonds. Their bonds.

Personally I’ve learned more from Twitter in the last six months than I have from books – and those were books that were recommended by people I follow on Twitter. If I conversed with morons, my conversations would be moronic. If I phoned an uneducated person to talk Nietzsche I’d be left disappointed. Would that be the telephone’s fault? Connections are what’s important, not the medium of connection.

And perhaps most importantly, no one forces you to connect. The connections you make online will reflect the type of person you are outside of any digital network. Porn stars don’t mix with priests online, birds of a feather truly do flock together, as the saying goes. If you like listening to Britney, you will gravitate towards Britney fans – or they’ll at least gravitate towards you. And that’s whether you are online or offline. All social media allows us to do is what we’ve always done: find like-minded people. The real revolution is how easy that connection is to make nowadays.

So, if you find yourself online having a conversation about what someone had for lunch, perhaps you need to realise that you’re partly to blame, not the system or tools that allow you to connect to whomever you please.

James Seddon