Personalised everything
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Having a conversation with Alex today made me re-think one of my pet peeves - personalised everything.
We're entering a culture where everything is tailored to our likes and dislikes, our exact preferences - we choose the news feeds we want, we filter feeds for things interesting to us, we abhor 'pushy' professional media setting the agenda, we claw back editorial control for ourselves.
But don't we miss out on the wider picture? When all the news headlines we get are filtered to the max by Google reader, don't we miss what's actually going on in the world? When our social news comes from Digg, don't we miss a little bit of intelligent commentary? When we open up our bookmarks, don't we miss skimming over something we might not normally be interested in?
I've recently got back into reading magazines and newspapers. Sure, a lot of it isn't relevant to me. But sometimes I spot something on the pages I flick past that does interest me that I wouldn't normally have seen. And that enriches my life a little. It educates me.
Which brings me to a point I've been pondering for a while. When I sat the entrance exam for my course at Oxford, I had one hour to write a paper on the following discussion point: "Should Government do what the people want or what is good for the people?" The question was designed to make us think about how far those in power should dictate to us from the position of superior knowledge, and how accountability should work in a modern age of dis-engagement from political and social life. I ask myself the same question about journalism - "Should journalists write what people want or what is good for people?"
If we swing in one direction, all we end up with is celebrity gossip, for the most part. In the other direction, we create total dis-engagement from the media. Digg and other 'power of the people' sites, as well as the 'filter to the max' mentality seem to me to be feeding our desire to opt out of anything we don't consider immediately relevant or entertaining. News isn't just about relevance and entertainment - it's about issues and responsibility. As citizens of the world, we have an obligation to keep ourselves informed as to what is happening in it, so that we can contribute to the conversation meaningfully, not withdraw into our filtered little bubbles.
I'm a big proponent of professionally produced media, of professional journalists and public service broadcasting. I think it's a great antidote to capitalist populist stuff. And I think we're going to have to look at how that is going to work on the web in the future, because I worry that we're going down a path that's going to isolate people, not bring them together. When there's no common literature for society, does society have any glue to hold it together?
3 comments:
I like what you said, Wil, but can't say that I'm concerned. I don't see myself getting isolated by "filtering" my news.
I see the situation as a big jigsaw puzzle. I'm interested in A,B,C, my friend in A,B,D,Z. We talk .. my friend learns about C and I about D,Z and so on.
And the thing to remember is that all subjects, A through Z, remain available to all interested in this type of info delivery system. And there's always someone who is.
If somebody else decides what people should or should not know ... some information could actually become unavailable .. and that's not good.
The thing to remember is that we DO filter our news and to occasionally look around at things we avoid.
Personal responsibility ... it's the price of freedom. Always was, always will be.
Wil, I think there's a deeper question here about the ability of humans to sort information, process it, and apply it to incredibly complex problems. Do panels of learned people with access to large quantities of information always make better decisions? If 1,000 news-watchers vote in an election, does the aggregation of information and thought they bring to the polling booth inevitably lead to a better long-term outcome than if 100 news-watchers vote? How about 100 non-news-watchers? Are you sure?
Thats a really interesting point Wil.
It slightly goes on from a conversation I was having with my girlfriend recently.
Neither of us watch the news (with the exception of last week and the flooding). I get all my info from podcasts and news feeds. My girlfriend is the same. She reads about what she's interested in.
The thing we both thought to ourselves is that we don't watch the news. I have no idea what is going on in the world around me, and thats worrying. Since the people i work with aren't into the things I am, I can't talk about those, and I have no idea about current affairs.
While its true that some public media is complete trash (gossip rags talking about the latest diet of some celeb, or what they were wearing, who they're dating, how bad they looked for one brief second while leaning in one particular way, etc), I think there is still a place for proper news organisations, the BBC, ITV, Sky News, CNN, Fox News, and the like. There needs to be someone who says "Hey you, this may not be in your immediate field of knowledge, but its interesting and you should know about it".
Personally I think I need someone to tell me about the world around me.
And while editorial is also important, and you can't trust them not to be bias, its a good thing, because you get a stronger case for either side. As long as you realise the bias, you can avoid being too drawn in by it.
Wil, I think you've pushed me to watch the news tonight.
Thanks!