Social Networks - enabler or obstacle?

The current #1 bestseller in Germany (in the politics and history category) “Payback “from FAZ editor Frank Schirrmacher (an excerpt can be found here) has caught my attention while doing my research on Social Networking in order to prepare for the final debate.

Schirrmacher openly admits his introspection that he cannot concentrate any more for a longer period of time, is more forgetful, and eager to let go to any distraction from his current task. He states that he neither sees himself as an Amish of the internet age, nor as a technologically disabled person, but that he just feels that his brain is not up to the overflow of information any more, which is one characteristic of the times we are living in. Information obviously comes at the cost of attention, and in his opinion, we are like animals which are feed by all of the big screens and little gadgets we own, and which are demanding our attention.

This feeling of forgetfulness does not contradict the ever growing amount of data (5 Exabyte estimated in 2002 on all known data storage media), because every information which is produced and broadcasted by an individual needs to be processed and stored by another individual. He calls that the population explosion of ideas.

From his point of view, the more we feed our own ideas into the network, the more we engage in the struggle for survival of information, ideas and thoughts in our own heads. He argues that the three biggest ideologies, which have changed the life of mankind most effectively in the last two centuries, were Taylorism, Marxism, and Darwinism. All of these three world views can be seen again now in the digital age: Taylorism in the form of multitasking, Marxism in the form of free and unlimited access to information, and Darwinism in the form of competitive advantage through the quickest access to latest information.

From this point onwards, he basically argues that the computers, which have brought us into this situation, could also be our way out of this situation – if we learn how to leverage them effectively. While briefly touching upon the widespread fear of the Orwellian Society, his general idea is that we should stop our mediocre attempt to coexist with computers, and start letting computers do what they can do best. This new freedom could be used to reflect upon information rather than to collect them, to define the goals and targets rather than struggling to find the right way. Computers are intelligently enough to process the information available to them in order to facilitate our decision, but they cannot replace the human judgement or our non-algorithmic and unpredictable approach to solving problems.

Now, I think this point of view is a very interesting one to reflect upon the future importance of social networks. On the one hand, social networks could be seen as an enabler, a tool which is helping us to become more efficient e.g. by having quick access to the relevant information, collaborating more closely with lower frictional losses, and also plainly by putting more emphasis on the social aspects of the information age.

On the other hands, social networks could be seen just as yet another obstacle, a drain of attention that is consuming our time. The disadvantages and dangers of the social networks, as well as their potential to herald the doom of modern civilization as we know it, has been broadly discussed in some of the previous entry from my fellow students, so that I do not need to go into more detail here I think.

While I personally feel that all the criticism and objections should be heard, I am too inherently optimistic (and due to my engineering background believing into the blessings of modern technology too deeply) in order to take my stand at this side of the debate. I rather believe that we have arrived at the crossroads now, were we need to throw over board our traditional thinking in order to develop new approaches which help us to deal with the challenge of information growth (and train the people how to apply them). Social networks are one very powerful tool for this from my point of view.

JHK