Instapaper This: Ένα Κείμενο Της Ζέιντι Σμιθ Για Τον Μαρκ Ζούκερμπεργκ Και Το “The Social Network”

Να ένα ωραίο κείμενο της Ζέιντι Σμιθ για το Facebook και τα σόσιαλ μύδια και την ταινία και τον Μαρκ Ζούκερμπεργκ. Είναι λίγο ελιτίστικη και -τολμώ να πω- γιαγιαδίστικη η γνώμη της, όχι πολύ στέρεα τεκμηριωμένη, αλλά όπως όλα τα δικά της, πολύ καλογραμμένη.

World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: How can I do it? Zuckerberg solved that one in about three weeks. The other question, the ethical question, he came to later: Why? Why Facebook? Why this format? Why do it like that? Why not do it another way? The striking thing about the real Zuckerberg, in video and in print, is the relative banality of his ideas concerning the “Why” of Facebook. He uses the word “connect” as believers use the word “Jesus,” as if it were sacred in and of itself: “So the idea is really that, um, the site helps everyone connect with people and share information with the people they want to stay connected with….” Connection is the goal. The quality of that connection, the quality of the information that passes through it, the quality of the relationship that connection permits—none of this is important. That a lot of social networking software explicitly encourages people to make weak, superficial connections with each other (as Malcolm Gladwell has recently argued), and that this might not be an entirely positive thing, seem to never have occurred to him.

Η ίδια, λέει, ήταν στο Χάρβαρντ το 2003, όταν γινήκαν όλα, και θυμάται και το χαμό που είχε γίνει με το Facemash.

Doubtless years from now I will misremember my closeness to Zuckerberg, in the same spirit that everyone in ’60s Liverpool met John Lennon.

Δες και μια εύγλωττη απάντηση από τον Atlantic.

Literary writers who, like Smith, teach, have another issue in examining social media. They suffer from a sampling bias much like social science researchers do when they run experiments with Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) undergraduates. She looks at a group of 18-22 year olds, and how they use the technology, and figures: this is how it will always be used and what it means.