Re: <nettime> They came, they surfed, they went back to the beach

[karaite <karaite@yahoo.com>]

> Even more rare is the recognition of the possibility
> that people might make an informed choice not to
> continue to use the internet.

While I agree that the way in which people oscillate around access to the
internet over time is an important area to look into, I am happy to be
completely mystified by the usefulness of recognising such a possibility
as this 'informed choice not to continue to use the internet'.

Such a concept is up there with the rarely recognised possibility that a
person might make an informed choice not to read any more books, not to
make any further use of the French language, the telephone, or the wok, or
not to listen to any more music in the key of E.

It is a rarely recognised possibility because it is almost entirely devoid
of meaning and as the points of access become more widespread, becomes
still less meaningful. Quite apart from anything else, how would an
informed ex-internet user ensure that they remained so informed, lest they
accidentally use the internet again? Does it count if someone else uses
the internet on their behalf? (Has an offline friend never asked you to
look this or that thing up for them, or, instead, asked you something or
other that you could only answer via Google...) What constitutes 'use' on
this periphery?

And, bluntly, who cares?

There are no more informed ex-internet users than there are informed
ex-book readers or informed ex-newspaper readers. With any technology that
is centered around information and information flow, you cease to be
informed at the point that you cease to use it and to keep yourself
informed about it. Ceasing to use the internet because it is 'boring' is
*exactly* like ceasing to read books because they are 'boring'.

It is hard to argue with such a view - obviously, if all books are boring
there is no point in suggesting that perhaps *this* book is interesting,
since the decision has already been made that all books are boring, so
*this* book too must be boring. Similarly, anyone who has decided that
anything reached via the internet is boring is not going to be interested
in nettime, slashdot, kuro5hin, the onion, amazon, whatever, since they
already know that these things are all boring. Must be. After all, how
hard is it to make an informed decision not to use that boring internet
world comprised of nothing but smelly dysfunctional frustrated young white
men?

The headline that springs to mind is along the lines of 'Dull
Unimaginative People In Can't Find Interesting Material Online Non-Shock'
but any research into this matter is likely to end up in the JoStBO
(Journal of Stating the Bleeding Obvious).

Surely it's far more interesting and worthwhile to look at ways of getting
access for the remaining many millions of intelligent informed people who
are not yet online than it is to look at why unintelligent closed-minded
people who find the online world 'boring' so do. Such people presumably
also find books and newspapers intrinsically boring, tabloid or otherwise,
and switch TV channels away from news and documentaries religiously.

It is possible that there are intelligent literate people out there who
cannot get their heads around the concept of a genuine candidate for the
nearest real-life thing to Borges' library ever, but there aren't many and
their number diminishes all the time as the lightbulbs finally click on
one by one.

It all reminds me of another (much shorter and equally imaginary) JoStBO
article - 'Heart Of Nothing - Encounters With The Marginalised Voices Of
People With No Ideas Of Their Own And Nothing To Say'.

*sigh*

wayne
http://www.waz.easynet.co.uk/




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