Internet-Pretension

It might be a coincidence or not that tonight two links which at first sight have nothing in common are published on my facebook page: "Time to pretend" a song by MGMT and a link from Liberation (french newspaper) and Spiegel (german magazine) about facebook and its new users conditions.

We live in a time in which we can get all kind of information about everything from everywhere. And by the way we also get information we don't need, information we weren't supposed to get if there wouldn't be internet and its reams of possibilities. On the network level this has radically changed our life, we can be connected with everybody at anytime. And we are also connected with people we wouldn't be if there wasn't internet and pages like facebook. On one hand there is the chance to leave behind any kind of shyness or fear or dullness and on the other there is the risk to disperse oneself. And we are in contact with people we havn't been since highschool or university but if we or they are in town we wouldn't call- because there is just nothing to say.

Here we slowly come to pretension: pretension to be in touch, in contact, in buisness. We are connected mentally with people but not physically. We prefer to spend lots of time in front of the screens and scrolling for hours than to have a walk outside and meet the person, or just go to sleep and recover from a hard day. No, we just can't stop. (I include myself and for information I actually love my hair which is growing and I will not cut it for the next 3 weeks). Of course it's nice to know that XY is well and playing with his wife, son or dog or is in holidays or is in his super car or is lying in the tube, but do we really care about this? Is that what makes us going forward, giving us inspiration for our life and our happyness? Sure enough there is the very favorable effact that information is in a way selected by our friends and contacts and this gives us new directions to go and see.

There must be another thing which keeps us going on and on with facebook: the possibility to pretend to be someone, to leave a trace in this tangled mass of information. We finally are happy to inform our friends, former friends and has been friends about what we do, like, read, see and we are finally happy to show that we are important. We need attention and here we get it and we ask for more, more, more. The interesting thing for me in the coincidence or not in the song of MGMT is that they sing "'ll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home Yeah, I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone" - like teenies who do not want to grow up. We are trying to get the attention back we once got from our families but we don't really want to make the step to relay this attention to our possible children, or other choices of life. There is the deep wish to be related but why don't we just digg up worms, listen to the water or watch a tree? We are not related- with ourselves...and we still miss the time spend alone.

Disconnect

02/2009 Andrea Weber