Commentary
What's So Hot About the Internet, The Times Asks
- by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, June 10, 2013
Sunday’s New York Times Magazine devoted itself to pondering and celebrating inventions. In the introduction, the magazine’s editor, Hugo Lindgren, explained, “Among the big questions raised by our exploration is whether our innovation-saturated culture is as magnificent as we like to think. How many of these new things actually improve our lives, as opposed to distracting us from more productive activities? “
He goes on to state “the great hope of our age—the Internet—has yet to boost our standard of living significantly. It has, however, boosted our capacity for distraction, procrastination, extended inquiries into trivia, locating the restaurant for every possible occasion and pornography.”
I don’t know if them’s fightin' words. But I often wonder what the people I’m reading and writing about feel about this incredible Internet.
I don’t know if you are like me in this regard, but I often marvel at what the Internet allows me to do and see and read and comment about and at other times, I’m mortified by all of those same “opportunities.” When you put together several bad Internet experiences into one day’s worth of activity, it is difficult to be full of wonder or appreciation.
But all grand inventions have the same range. Electricity used to power a CAT scan is the same electricity that works a tanning bed or the blow-up Santa Claus figurine on a lawn at Christmastime.
Through the Internet, you can see the innovations special report in the Times even if you have happened to have heard of it only just this second. Not many years ago, it would have been hard to have done that. even in New York. because you would have had to scrounge up a copy of yesterday’s paper from the trash chute, maybe. Now you can read the story in Timbuktu or Throg’s Neck, and you’ll be able to years from now.
The special magazine report carries a history of sorts about streaming video’s fascination with cat videos and notes that one YouTube video, “Surprised Kitty” has been viewed some 69 million times. Video sharing is our third most-favorite online activity, believe it or not. But don’t judge too harshly. The Times notes that Thomas Edison filmed cats fighting each other, wearing tiny, little boxing gloves, and that was back in 1894.
pj@mediapost.com
P.J. Bednarski has written for MediaPost since 2012 on media and marketing topics. He can be reached at pj@mediapost.com
Like anything, the internet is a double edged sword. So, for example, it offers the ability to connect small communities for support and interest. It also helps advance the tyranny of the tiny minority who get a bullhorn they never would have had...and to suck people in who really aren't thinking. That said, I think it's extraordinarily important to ponder where it's made a significant difference and to what degree is it, as the author suggests, purely a distraction.
"Through the Internet, you can see the innovations special report in the Times even if you have happened to have heard of it only just this second." = "... extended inquiries into trivia..."
Maybe we should not look to an institution which has lost most of its edge in its own set of skills due to the Internet itself, for a call on the Internet. They ain't turning back the clock at the times, no matter how much they want to. Film editors (and so many other jobs all through media) have been upended and transformed and even lost, due to technology. My own job used to be much more time-consuming, so much more difficult and so many things so much more that it is now less of, due specifically to the Internet.
Fire. Water. Friend and/or foe. There are fire departments, water departments and all kinds of necessary regulations to keep them friends yet sometimes too much of good thing is disastrous. If there were no regulations, how do you think the world would look like ?