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I think the author of this blog has a view of "society" that is a little myopic. The premise that the "structure of today's society" is based on facebook and t

I think the author of this blog has a view of "society" that is a little myopic. The premise that the "structure of today's society" is based on facebook and the web is, I think, something several hundred million people in this country would disagree with. The internet itself is not yet one of the few pieces of technology that is intractably ingrained in our societal DNA. On that list? I don't know. Cars. Telephones. Television. And _facebook_ certainly isn't.

someplacecold 17y ago
On the contrary, even if you don't use the web on a consistent basis, you actually do still depend on it. When people coordinate shipping groceries, they use the internet. When people plan any aspect of any product you use, they use the internet. When newscasters and radio announcers ready their words and check their facts, they benefit greatly from the internet. One of the greatest benefits of the internet is that information breathability has increased drastically. A generation ago, if you wanted to know why the economy was falling apart around your ears, you might look at a newspaper, but if you didn't understand, there wasn't a lot you could do. These days, you have a million web sites and powerful tools for organizing information. Ignorant people these days versus ignorant people those days are drastically different. And the debate is not about whether Facebook is intractable social DNA. The debate is whether it is a tremendously bad thing that users can't tell whether they're on Facebook or not. They can't, and therefore their ability to access information is greatly diminished. I don't honestly see how you could think anything different.
- endlessvoid94 17y ago
  He's not arguing the web isn't important. He's saying that for a TON of people, they don't need to use it personally, and see no reason to put in the (sometimes) massive amount of effort to learn how to use the web. Their lives go on just fine without their direct involvement. Also, it is useless to cry "How terrible that so many people don't understand! What a failure!" -- The only failure here is the failure to make software just as intuitive as older technology. For someone who never uses the web, Google is the only option because of it's incredible simplicity. It takes a non-web savvy person quite a while to parse something like Facebook or Amazon. I'm amazed at the narrow view that so many people (seem to) have.
  - someplacecold 17y ago
    He said that the internet is not something that society absolutely cannot function without. He is wrong. Society very much depends on the internet. The fact that not everyone has a Faceboook profile is inconsequential to this, and I would point out that the one does not follow the other. Further, saying that the failure lies in the fact that we need to "make software just as intuitive as older technology", is just hilarious. Since when is "older technology" intuitive? Simple, sure, but intuitive? It's not like the natural state of an old-fashioned phone call is fraught with complexity, and that phone companies have won a major victory by wrapping them in a simple user interface. You just call, then you're done. If that's intuitive, I assure you, it's accidental. And have you ever sent a letter before? What's intuitive about addressing an envelope, or styling your letter accordingly? What's intuitive about stamping it and sending off? We've been doing it forever, but that doesn't make it natural. What you want to say is that we should be making software a simple and familiar as older technology. But at what cost? I love my smart phone, and as far as I'm concerned, it's about as close to being as simple as it can get, while still implementing all these features I like. I'm not switching to a Jitterbug any time soon. Sure, it's intuitive, but it's also simple. My phone is intuitive and functional. That's a win for me. The fact is, at the end of the day, progress is made by breaking the norm. I don't want to go back to the simplicity of old phones; I don't want to look everything up at a library; I don't want to do everything the "old" way. But with these leaps in progress, a lot of people have been left behind. Yes, that's a problem. Yes, that's a failure.
    - encoderer 17y ago
      This is, honestly, absurd. Society depends on the internet? Sure, some people depend on the internet. And some companies. And some verticals. But "depends" sounds to me like... without it, society will crumble or go through some dramatic metamorphosis. I find that... questionable to say the least. I don't remember much about the 1980s, I was 8, but I'm faily certain it wasn't the dark ages as it seems you're suggesting. Eliminate the internet off tomorrow, and society will carry on. Eliminate motor vehicles? Electricity? Complete chaos. The idea that it's some big problem because people can't differentiate between Facebook and some blog? This is more myopic thinking. You're acting like if you're not on the internet you must either be amish or impoverished. Please.
avdempsey 17y ago
13 year old Americans (in families that can afford a computer with broadband) will have their whole social lives cataloged on Facebook or its successor. Indeed, even younger children will have their milestones shared by their eager parents, until they are old enough to take over. This is the divide: those who've had the ultimate social family tree preserved in a convenient database, and those who go on a road trip to search public records for traces of genealogy. Any effort an oldster takes today to preserve 'who they were' will pale next to a lifetime of crowdsourced social biography.
- iron_ball 17y ago
  Overly optimistic. When Facebook dies -- and let us assume it will some day die -- who will import its data and carry on? Who will archive it? They save everything, today, but I doubt "long-term store of knowledge about individual humans" is one of their explicit design goals.
  - donaq 17y ago
    Well, Geocities used to be a behemoth only a company with mega resources like Yahoo could undertake. When it went down, a few individuals archived most of it [citation needed]. I'd imagine that if and when Facebook goes down, something along those lines might happen.
endlessvoid94 17y ago
I came here to say the same thing. I'm a 5th year at college and it astounds me how many CS/ECE/Engineering majors really don't understand that a vast majority of people don't know how anything works. It's a completely naive, misinformed, and narrow view of people in general. Whenever I'm building software, I ask myself "Could my parents use this? Grandparents?" Most of the time, the answer is "probably not". But when it's "Yes", thats when I think I have a good implementation.

someplacecold 17y ago

On the contrary, even if you don't use the web on a consistent basis, you actually do still depend on it. When people coordinate shipping groceries, they use the internet. When people plan any aspect of any product you use, they use the internet. When newscasters and radio announcers ready their words and check their facts, they benefit greatly from the internet. One of the greatest benefits of the internet is that information breathability has increased drastically. A generation ago, if you wanted to know why the economy was falling apart around your ears, you might look at a newspaper, but if you didn't understand, there wasn't a lot you could do. These days, you have a million web sites and powerful tools for organizing information. Ignorant people these days versus ignorant people those days are drastically different. And the debate is not about whether Facebook is intractable social DNA. The debate is whether it is a tremendously bad thing that users can't tell whether they're on Facebook or not. They can't, and therefore their ability to access information is greatly diminished. I don't honestly see how you could think anything different.

endlessvoid94 17y ago
He's not arguing the web isn't important. He's saying that for a TON of people, they don't need to use it personally, and see no reason to put in the (sometimes) massive amount of effort to learn how to use the web. Their lives go on just fine without their direct involvement. Also, it is useless to cry "How terrible that so many people don't understand! What a failure!" -- The only failure here is the failure to make software just as intuitive as older technology. For someone who never uses the web, Google is the only option because of it's incredible simplicity. It takes a non-web savvy person quite a while to parse something like Facebook or Amazon. I'm amazed at the narrow view that so many people (seem to) have.
- someplacecold 17y ago
  He said that the internet is not something that society absolutely cannot function without. He is wrong. Society very much depends on the internet. The fact that not everyone has a Faceboook profile is inconsequential to this, and I would point out that the one does not follow the other. Further, saying that the failure lies in the fact that we need to "make software just as intuitive as older technology", is just hilarious. Since when is "older technology" intuitive? Simple, sure, but intuitive? It's not like the natural state of an old-fashioned phone call is fraught with complexity, and that phone companies have won a major victory by wrapping them in a simple user interface. You just call, then you're done. If that's intuitive, I assure you, it's accidental. And have you ever sent a letter before? What's intuitive about addressing an envelope, or styling your letter accordingly? What's intuitive about stamping it and sending off? We've been doing it forever, but that doesn't make it natural. What you want to say is that we should be making software a simple and familiar as older technology. But at what cost? I love my smart phone, and as far as I'm concerned, it's about as close to being as simple as it can get, while still implementing all these features I like. I'm not switching to a Jitterbug any time soon. Sure, it's intuitive, but it's also simple. My phone is intuitive and functional. That's a win for me. The fact is, at the end of the day, progress is made by breaking the norm. I don't want to go back to the simplicity of old phones; I don't want to look everything up at a library; I don't want to do everything the "old" way. But with these leaps in progress, a lot of people have been left behind. Yes, that's a problem. Yes, that's a failure.
  - encoderer 17y ago
    This is, honestly, absurd. Society depends on the internet? Sure, some people depend on the internet. And some companies. And some verticals. But "depends" sounds to me like... without it, society will crumble or go through some dramatic metamorphosis. I find that... questionable to say the least. I don't remember much about the 1980s, I was 8, but I'm faily certain it wasn't the dark ages as it seems you're suggesting. Eliminate the internet off tomorrow, and society will carry on. Eliminate motor vehicles? Electricity? Complete chaos. The idea that it's some big problem because people can't differentiate between Facebook and some blog? This is more myopic thinking. You're acting like if you're not on the internet you must either be amish or impoverished. Please.

avdempsey 17y ago

13 year old Americans (in families that can afford a computer with broadband) will have their whole social lives cataloged on Facebook or its successor. Indeed, even younger children will have their milestones shared by their eager parents, until they are old enough to take over. This is the divide: those who've had the ultimate social family tree preserved in a convenient database, and those who go on a road trip to search public records for traces of genealogy. Any effort an oldster takes today to preserve 'who they were' will pale next to a lifetime of crowdsourced social biography.

iron_ball 17y ago
Overly optimistic. When Facebook dies -- and let us assume it will some day die -- who will import its data and carry on? Who will archive it? They save everything, today, but I doubt "long-term store of knowledge about individual humans" is one of their explicit design goals.
- donaq 17y ago
  Well, Geocities used to be a behemoth only a company with mega resources like Yahoo could undertake. When it went down, a few individuals archived most of it [citation needed]. I'd imagine that if and when Facebook goes down, something along those lines might happen.

endlessvoid94 17y ago

I came here to say the same thing. I'm a 5th year at college and it astounds me how many CS/ECE/Engineering majors really don't understand that a vast majority of people don't know how anything works. It's a completely naive, misinformed, and narrow view of people in general. Whenever I'm building software, I ask myself "Could my parents use this? Grandparents?" Most of the time, the answer is "probably not". But when it's "Yes", thats when I think I have a good implementation.