Issue 44 / May 2012
'Twittered to Hell'... and back?
So Howard Jacobson doesn't like social networking? When asked by Mariella Frostrup on The Book Show whether he was excited about the role Twitter and other such sites have played in mobilising protests in the Middle East, he wasn't too enthusiastic - either about their impact in serious political situations, or in general.
In fact, the most recent recipient of the Booker Prize seemed to have an almost violent dislike of social networking, explaining, '[I'm] suspicious when I hear Facebook as if Facebook is a terrific thing... I don't believe that the internet is necessarily a force for good.'
Point made, but Mr Jacobson had a final flourish: 'Facebook will kill us one day... Twitter will be the death of us. We'll be twittered to hell.'
Quite. But, despite conflating Twitter and Facebook, leading one to suspect that his most salient remark was 'I don't get this', does he have a point?
Certainly Jacobson is not the only high-profile figure raising concerns about a age in which we are engulfed by forms of instant communication that have the power to influence the way we think, and thus our creative habits and impulses.
Perhaps one of the most significant detractors of social networking is Jaron Lanier; he was working on this kind of technology in Silicon Valley in the eighties, and still works in the digital industry. His book You Are Not a Gadget has caused a stir on both sides of the Atlantic, and TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in their 2010 poll.
Lanier posits that technology giants like Apple are creating machines designed to be so responsive to human thought patterns, that in turn they will make humans more like machines; that individual identity will become inextricably linked to machines, and that creativity will be streamed through computer programs that are designed around the yes or no of coding.
And although not claiming it will murder us in our beds, he is a well-known detractor of Facebook, suggesting it turns life 'into a database'.
Lanier also touches on the herd mentality of these sites, and how their superficial, didactic style, their churning out of simplistic ideas and opinions can actually restrict rather than enable greater free expression.
One feels sure Orwell would, if writing now, have much to say about Twitter and Facebook - a forum that appears to give endless free expression to all, but which is an effective way to control and guide public opinion. (See also Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story for a very recent take on an imagined post-digital US society.)
But is this viewpoint too simplistic? Too yes or no in itself? Is our relationship with new social technologies really so wholly negative? Jacobson might want to consider that even though America is at the heart of the digital revolution - Apple wheeled Steve Jobs out to launch the iPad 2 on Wednesday - many would argue its authors are producing prose fiction far more exciting than anything being published in the UK at the moment. Lethem, Franzen, Goodman, Krauss, Vann, Means, Tower, Shteyngart ... the list goes on. Perhaps, instead of cloning us, the march of technology will give the creative minds of our generation something to fight against.
AC Goodall
Friday, 4 March, 2011
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