When I started this blog, near the end of the dark ages now known as Web 1.0, I used to search for information about books. Google was my best friend, then as now, and through it I discovered many wonderful things and shared them on this blog. That’s really how blogging got started, according to some, with people trawling the internet and bringing together links that other people might find interesting. There was a name for that kind of blog: the filter.
That was all well and good when there were a few expert filters and lots of followers (not that I am an expert or ever had lots of followers; I speak in generalities). Now that web 2.0 is in full swing, everyone can be a filter. Sharing has become an integral part of searching, like exhaling after inhaling. It’s easy, it’s social, and it’s fun. Almost from birth we humans have a natural inclination to say “Hey, look at this!” whenever we find something interesting. For all we know that is how language got started. Given this propensity, web 2.0 was inevitable, and it’s no wonder it is so popular. We like to share and we like it when people share with us.
Serendipity is particularly delightful to us. One of the usual arguments in favour of shopping at bookstores and borrowing from libraries, as opposed to their electronic alternatives, is serendipity, the possibility of running across a book that you never knew existed but that has turned out to be wonderful. Essential to the pleasure of serendipity is that you weren’t looking, something just appeared in front of you, in the midst of a whole lot of other things you aren’t the least bit interested in. The more haystack there is, the brighter the needle seems to be. Web 2.0 is made for serendipity.
The problem (you know I was leading to this, right?) is that when everyone is a filter, more of the internet gets through until it is effectively the same as the raw web, that is, more than we can take in. But it’s not just the quantity that is the problem. Instead of searching specifically for what I want (and still having plenty of serendipitous discoveries, thank you very much), I now spend a whole lot of time sifting through shared content that I never would have encountered in my targeted searches. That’s not to say this stuff isn’t interesting—I find almost everything interesting to some degree—it’s just that the signal to noise ratio has gone down, and sometimes, with the quality of information out there these days, it’s even hard to tell the difference between the two.
So, is quantity or quality the problem? Clay Shirky famously questioned whether we are suffering from information overload or filter failure. He points out that there has been too much information for any one person to assimilate since the invention of the printing press. Somehow this didn’t bother me when most of it was tucked away in the libraries, archives, and museums of the world, but now that it is piling up in my various electronic inboxes I am feeling the pressure to address it somehow.
I think I might have to agree with Shirky that the problem is filter failure. Google is a good filter, and getting better all the time. You can ask for exactly what you want and zip through the results in a flash. Web 2.0, on the other hand, is a lousy filter. For one thing it is located in multiple places. You can do some aggregating with tools like Google Reader or Yahoo Pipes, but it still doesn’t compare with search in terms of one-stop-shopping efficiency. The other problem is that social media are, well, social. In web 2.0, information is attached to people, which gives it added charm but also makes it hard to opt out. Etiquette and affection complicate our ability to pick and choose information and information streams. It’s a problem we want to have—lots of friends sending us cool stuff—but it can get to be too much of a good thing.
One thing that concerns me is what effect this shift from search to serendipity has on us intellectually and personally. It’s a shift from active to passive engagement with information, from following our own internal impulses to being led by the flashing pixels before our eyes. Speaking for myself, I’m starting to feel like I’ve lost my way in cyberspace. I’m like Odysseus’ scouts on the island of the Lotus Eaters, who are enjoying the fruit so much that they forget they are supposed to be going somewhere. Where was I going? Oh ya, the classics! Where did I put my oar?
I really don’t know what the solution is. I try to cut back on blog subscriptions and Twitter follows, and then I find some great new people and I’m back to square one. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining—this is a “high class problem” if ever there was one. But at the same time I take my intellectual life seriously and right now it is definitely off course and drifting. I have long been concerned with respecting our planet’s finite resources but haven’t really given much respect to my own. The possibilities of the internet are limitless, but mine are not; I must learn to distinguish the two! I need to be my own Greek hero and drag myself back to the ship to continue my journey. I just hope the Skylla doesn’t get me!
