This is an individual post from Ben Brown's blog. Use the links below to navigate through the archives.
« Previous Next »This weekend, I got to see We Live In Public, a documentary movie about Joshua Harris, who is an artist who experimented with internet video and webcams in the early days of the web. In addition to creating the first internet television station, he and his girlfriend lived in a webcam saturated house — and learned very quickly how hard it is to “live in public.”
There is an interesting parallel between Joshua Harris and Justin Hall that I think warrants mention. Both were pulled into the world of living publicly because it was fun and exciting and the attention felt good. They were doing something new and fresh and different. However, the newfreshdifferent feeling overshadowed the erosion of their personal lives and their offline interactions. They quickly blew past boundaries they didn’t even know they had. The art, the science, the publicity overshadowed the question of “should I be sharing this?” And in both cases, this realization that HOLY CRAP, I AM TOTALLY OUT THERE came with a near catastrophic personality episode.
The stories of people like Joshua Harris are important to study, as more and more of us are now living in the voluntary surveillance state that he imagined in his art. It is so easy to share information with such a wide audience that I frequently wonder whether or not we share too much, with too many people, worrying too little about the repercussions of each share, but also the changes this new openness are making as a whole on our personalities.
I don’t think that twittering or posting to Facebook is the same as living in an underground bunker surrounded by video cameras. But there is that same element of newfreshdifferent that comes along with these new technologies, especially for folks who have not spent the last 10 years speaking HTML.
When AOL connected its members to the internet, Usenet and email and forums were inundated by millions of people who did not know the rules for proper behavior online. This caused lots of turmoil, and for many, brought the quality of the online experience down a few notches. What I worry about is that a similar massive import of members is being caused by things like the mass adoption of Twitter and Facebook - and none of these people have learned the lessons that Joshua Harris and Justin Hall taught us.
What percentage of these new people will have to go through the same heart-wrenching experiences to learn these lessons all over again? Does each person need to learn these lessons individually, or can they be taught? Can some of these lessons be built into the actual product design?
Technology is a wonderful thing, but without limits, without boundaries, can be incredibly dehumanizing. It is our responsibility as designers and technologists to consider these issues as we continue to build and rebuild the web.
(This movie and it’s director, Ondi Timoner - who also directed DIG! - are currently touring around the country. Right now the film is showing here in Austin and in San Francisco at the Roxie. Go while you can!)
