State of the world wide web: Content on the web
Internet, ah! This hyper speed portal to such a vast amount of knowledge all around us. Knowledge that may or may not be true, but that is a different thought altogether, and we may dwell on that later.
The current reverie centers around the presence of such a huge amount of information and the ease of access to it, but where is it taking us.
I, for one, am extremely touched by the tools at hand today and find myself scouring the net for satiating my veritable appetite for more information. Not always do I know what to do with that information but there I am on the web, watching, reading, listening and what not.
It helped me with fixing that dual-shock remote of my PS3 console and even replace the touch panel of a phone. Things, that I would have done, nonetheless, but would have taken a lot more time to figure out the right way to accomplish. (After all, I always opened up electronics way before Internet told me how to do that).
I just recently managed to cultivate button mushroom mycellium on gram seeds, though that experiment ends there, commands the General of the home front.
Yet, a profound thought looms while I read about hydroponics, or algae as a source of food for the future or watch that creepy AI Sophia talk about being alive and feeling.
Where are we headed with the kind of content on the internet and the way we choose to use it?
The biggest challenge of our times is the massive amount of content being generated on social media channels.
With the advent of social media, content creation has moved from the hands of experts into the hands of the masses. While the argument favors this paradigm where earlier the masses were at the mercy of media houses and the way they wanted to present a story, the transfer of control to the masses should have provided a more congruous view of the affairs. To an extent, this does prove to be true when we look at the content on Wikipedia, the biggest knowledge catalog created by the people.
Content creation: We need to consider the kind of content being generated. Images and videos galore, with no apparent reason behind their existence. A pout selfie doesn't really produce any meaningful information except that the person has lips and the lip muscles are not paralyzed.
It is not always supposed to be bad, really. Sylvester Stallone on Instagram is a huge motivation to many, if he can do it post 70, what excuse do we have to not be taking care of our bodies. Yet we need to look through the layers of what we perceive. It does not mean, everyone needs to pump himself full of steroids to look like a human wrecking machine. Alas, that is where it ends up.
Content presentation: Self aggrandizement has become the key to social media presence and SM channels are targeting the very psyche of us humans to love ourselves, but more of getting acceptance. Look at those like buttons, why else would we need those and how many selfies would there be if not for those buttons?
While this may allow a huge psychological boost to many, for feedback is the key to motivation. Why not? I did a good job, I posted it online, people liked it and I get motivated to continue. Maybe, even other's get an idea or two, or plan to try out what I did.
Yet, in a virtual world, content can be as virtual as one pleases and the obsession for admiration is driving this content like an out of control rollercoaster.
Pictures are highly edited, look at the tons of image manipulation tools for our phones. Videos are cut and stitched to create content that is completely out of context, fake news is everywhere. Reality is just a matter of perspective now.
Content impression: It gets even trickier when we start to look at how this content impresses us. Our entire life has become a huge advertisement, that we are either viewing or presenting.
We as humans, have started evolving a hive mentality where cascaded effects of impressions created on one mind can be seen rippling throughout. The new term for this is, trending.
While it may seem logical that we see a picture of a model wearing a "Brand" Tee on the "Brand's" page. The illogical starts to stir, when a host of people start posting the same picture of themselves, wearing same Tee, in similar pose and editing heavily to fit in. No , those pictures are not for friends and family (maybe even hidden from family). The only value of such content is for the brand, that is getting this free advertising for itself.
On the offside, it is creating a generation of individuals who are easily impressed, influenced and ready to flock together.
Content extension: With so many people on-board and such a lot of content being generated, we should actually expect a boost in new ideas, new thoughts, experimentation, constructive discussions and arguments. Alas, what we see is that we are still at the same place, with the same small number of people thinking differently, while a lot of others are copying them. It does help, for ideas get propagated easily and a lot more people are able to reap benefit of those. But the overall, prime idea generation stays stagnant.
Worse still, constructive arguments and discussions have given way to trolls. This further the need for individuals to fit in.
All in all, the explosive growth of this content is pushing us towards a world quite akin to Keanu Reeves' Equilibrium where everyone will be, just the same.
The current reverie centers around the presence of such a huge amount of information and the ease of access to it, but where is it taking us.
I, for one, am extremely touched by the tools at hand today and find myself scouring the net for satiating my veritable appetite for more information. Not always do I know what to do with that information but there I am on the web, watching, reading, listening and what not.
It helped me with fixing that dual-shock remote of my PS3 console and even replace the touch panel of a phone. Things, that I would have done, nonetheless, but would have taken a lot more time to figure out the right way to accomplish. (After all, I always opened up electronics way before Internet told me how to do that).
I just recently managed to cultivate button mushroom mycellium on gram seeds, though that experiment ends there, commands the General of the home front.
Yet, a profound thought looms while I read about hydroponics, or algae as a source of food for the future or watch that creepy AI Sophia talk about being alive and feeling.
Where are we headed with the kind of content on the internet and the way we choose to use it?
The biggest challenge of our times is the massive amount of content being generated on social media channels.
With the advent of social media, content creation has moved from the hands of experts into the hands of the masses. While the argument favors this paradigm where earlier the masses were at the mercy of media houses and the way they wanted to present a story, the transfer of control to the masses should have provided a more congruous view of the affairs. To an extent, this does prove to be true when we look at the content on Wikipedia, the biggest knowledge catalog created by the people.
Content creation: We need to consider the kind of content being generated. Images and videos galore, with no apparent reason behind their existence. A pout selfie doesn't really produce any meaningful information except that the person has lips and the lip muscles are not paralyzed.
It is not always supposed to be bad, really. Sylvester Stallone on Instagram is a huge motivation to many, if he can do it post 70, what excuse do we have to not be taking care of our bodies. Yet we need to look through the layers of what we perceive. It does not mean, everyone needs to pump himself full of steroids to look like a human wrecking machine. Alas, that is where it ends up.
Content presentation: Self aggrandizement has become the key to social media presence and SM channels are targeting the very psyche of us humans to love ourselves, but more of getting acceptance. Look at those like buttons, why else would we need those and how many selfies would there be if not for those buttons?
While this may allow a huge psychological boost to many, for feedback is the key to motivation. Why not? I did a good job, I posted it online, people liked it and I get motivated to continue. Maybe, even other's get an idea or two, or plan to try out what I did.
Yet, in a virtual world, content can be as virtual as one pleases and the obsession for admiration is driving this content like an out of control rollercoaster.
Pictures are highly edited, look at the tons of image manipulation tools for our phones. Videos are cut and stitched to create content that is completely out of context, fake news is everywhere. Reality is just a matter of perspective now.
Content impression: It gets even trickier when we start to look at how this content impresses us. Our entire life has become a huge advertisement, that we are either viewing or presenting.
We as humans, have started evolving a hive mentality where cascaded effects of impressions created on one mind can be seen rippling throughout. The new term for this is, trending.
While it may seem logical that we see a picture of a model wearing a "Brand" Tee on the "Brand's" page. The illogical starts to stir, when a host of people start posting the same picture of themselves, wearing same Tee, in similar pose and editing heavily to fit in. No , those pictures are not for friends and family (maybe even hidden from family). The only value of such content is for the brand, that is getting this free advertising for itself.
On the offside, it is creating a generation of individuals who are easily impressed, influenced and ready to flock together.
Content extension: With so many people on-board and such a lot of content being generated, we should actually expect a boost in new ideas, new thoughts, experimentation, constructive discussions and arguments. Alas, what we see is that we are still at the same place, with the same small number of people thinking differently, while a lot of others are copying them. It does help, for ideas get propagated easily and a lot more people are able to reap benefit of those. But the overall, prime idea generation stays stagnant.
Worse still, constructive arguments and discussions have given way to trolls. This further the need for individuals to fit in.
All in all, the explosive growth of this content is pushing us towards a world quite akin to Keanu Reeves' Equilibrium where everyone will be, just the same.
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