I am an early adopter. No question. One of those few who signs up for a ton of websites, everything from automated grocers to Twitter. I bought the original model of the iphone, and I am currently using a developer’s build of Chrome. I am not on the so-called “bleeding edge” of technology, but I am towards the front lines. If I had unlimited resources, I probably would be one of the suckers to buy one of those new 3D TV’s that premiered at CES this past month (actually, probably not, I have an HD TV and I refuse to get HD programming because it hurts my eyes, and also I am not that eager to look for a life replacement. I might feel differently if I watched sports).
I read an article today about blippy.com
It’s not that I can’t see the point. I can’t, but that has never stopped me from trying out a (free) service (as I said I am on Twitter. My last two posts were about how sweaters are good for hiding the fact that I haven’t ironed).
It’s not that I think it is a privacy invasion. Though I do tend to keep a pretty tight chokehold on the privacy settings of my social networking.
I think the thing that worries me about blippy is the homogeneity. There is an anecdote about a Wi-Fi enabled scale. No one needs a wi-fi enabled scale. That’s like a twittering toaster, a talking car, or a bed that says when you are having sex. And 15 people bought it because blippy helped induce a mass hysteria that caused them to think that it would be better to have your weight broadcast over the air rather than remember what it is and write it down (record it in your computer or iPhone, or what have you). The phrase “viral shopping” is a scary one to me. Also, the fact that he was willing to spend $169 on a scale because it was wi-fi enabled, and because his friend bought it. This is the type of service that will end up with everyone having the same items in their home. It brings to mind the anecdote that before radio regional accents were much more widespread and noticeable, but with the radio in everyone’s home, people started thinking there was a “right” way to talk, so we lost an aspect of the music of American speech.
Another thing that is troubling about this is that it is broadcasting your purchases to anyone who cares. This is, in my mind, a different point than the lack of privacy. It means that when you buy someone a present, you have to use the card that is not linked to blippy. This makes Christmas shopping require a lot more thought. It gives it even more of an air of secrecy, because you have to consider not only buying the gifts with an unlinked card, but if you want lunch while you are shopping you have to use that same card so that people won’t know where you are. It could create an overly sneaky attitude to shopping. Instead of seeing something nice that you want to get for someone, you need to start thinking about how to buy it, and possibly even say, “I’ve already had lunch over at that Chili’s, so I should come back another day so that that geographical marker doesn’t tip her off.”
And I am over-thinking this, as I am wont to do, but a large part of gift giving is the presentation. You wrap the presents, you write a little card, you put it under the tree, and they have the anticipation grow during the days leading up. If they just log on and see that you bought something at Borders that cost exactly what that book she wanted cost, where is the joy.
I suppose, though, this is what the web is leading up to. My phone can automatically tell everyone where I am. My photos are tagged with where I took them. Friends of mine can see what I recently watched from Netflix. There are plenty of sites where I can say what I ate, what my new year’s resolutions are, even a site where I can keep a log of my sleep and then update facebook with how I slept. An alarm on my phone will link to my facebook and twitter account and when the alarm goes off, it will tell me what I missed while I was asleep. This “Web 2.0″ has spawned a culture of co-dependence. We have always needed each other, but now there is a paralysis that comes when you can’t consult your friends, buddies, or followers. And not only do we need the social network, we need the wireless network. A certain malaise comes when we can’t get signal, and this is just exacerbated by the fact that with new phones we can get signal anywhere, and without it, what do we do?
The future is here, and unlike all of the visions by authors and directors, it is not a future of lonely individuals eating food in pill form and not having any communication beyond their cubicle-like apartment. It is a future of lonely individuals having an overwhelming amount of communication in their cubicle-like apartment. And the pressed chicken pieces on their 5-dollar foot-long sandwiches does bear a resemblance to a food pill.
So what do we do? What can we do? Do we need to do anything? I am not claiming to be above it, I am not claiming that this will stop me from trying out all the new tech. I am simply looking at the pathway and pontificating. The common belief, though, is that trends tend to happen in a pendulum-fashion, once we swing too far one way the conservatives will suddenly look like the liberals and we will start swinging back. If I remember correctly, the worry about Web 1.0 was that we would lose our social interaction skills and we would all end up alone ordering our groceries on-line.
And that hasn’t happened.
But that’s only because I haven’t sat down to figure out how to effectively work Alice.com.