This is fantastic, but actually goes much deeper than social media timelines. Think about all types of social information available to us. My granddad literally grasps at a past that doesn't exist. He has no pictures and maybe a few letters. So little information of a beginning lost to time forever. Our generation has pictures, video, blogs, twitter, etc. the list could go on forever. One of my friends just adopted a kid and the girls entire life is recorded in vine-like video clips on her iPhone. What would it be like to be a 100 years old with a large portion of your first year recorded? The function of all of this is for improved memory. Technology enhances human memory. Whenever we have the technological ability to collect information about our own lives, we do it. I suspect that children in the 2050s will have almost all relevant information about their lives recorded in some way, shape, or form. Most likely in quantitative and qualitative ways that don't currently exist. If there is an ultimate goal to this technological progress it can best be represented in attempting to have a complete and unified history of self and consciousness. And it will all be in the Global Brain.
I wonder how this will affect storytelling though. There are some truly excellent storytellers in my family and the way that they told me about our family and family history is no doubt embellished and colored by the passage of time. It's actually a subject I've written about in my own work. If you've ever read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then you'll have a sense of the kind of storytelling I mean. No doubt, many people will still be willing to listen to their family histories regardless of the facts, but for some I foresee more moments akin to those like finding out that one's dad isn't the strongest man in the world, or that one's parent's are merely two human beings doing the best that they can.
Modes of storytelling have always been altered by technology. Most anthropologists are starting to consider language itself to be a technology. The types of narratives you can construct pre-language are quite primitive. Very short strings of symbols without grammar. With language storytelling can properly emerge. Perhaps as a function of explaining things that are confusing or mysterious. Perhaps as a function to aid in something natural selection related (e.g., improve hunting routes by telling stories, etc.), or sexual selection related (e.g., telling a story about something intelligent, novel, or funny to a member of the opposite sex to increase chances of copulation). Then think about how story telling would be changed by the invention of writing systems. All of a sudden you can transcend time and space. You can read the thoughts and words of someone who isn't immediately present. This significantly enlarges the number of stories that can be told (i.e., quantifiably changes stories), but also qualitatively changes stories by significantly enlarging the types of stories that can be told (i.e., let me tell you a story from another time and another space that you have never experienced and may never experience). In contemporary times stories can be told in a number of different mediums that never existed before. We use new technologies to create more stories and different stories. That will never stop. Stories will always change both qualitatively and quantitatively in relation to the technologies in existence. This shapes families, friends, and every social unit. Fundamentally changing the nature of story telling fundamentally alters the types of relationships we have, because they change the human narrative and how we imagine our lives.I wonder how this will affect storytelling though.
> Modes of storytelling have always been altered by technology. Most anthropologists are starting to consider language itself to be a technology. The types of narratives you can construct pre-language are quite primitive. Very short strings of symbols without grammar. theadvancedapes, the whole start of your comment reminded me of this, which is (I guess) a spoken-word poem. I thought I'd share. humanodon, you might enjoy too. Are you familiar with Rives? I don't slam or do spoken word myself but, if it's good, I can enjoy it. http://www.ted.com/talks/rives_tells_a_story_of_mixed_emotic...
I'm not familiar with the guy. Clever video though. It's been a while since I really paid attention to spoken word or slam. I think Saul Williams is pretty good, though I wonder what his success would look like if no one ever saw him perform; how would people react to his poems on the page? For me, that's the disconnect in regard to slam vs. page poetry. In universities and colleges, people that study poetry tend to focus on how things look like on the page and only occasionally focus on the sonics and even then, it's mostly on rhythm, meter and rhyme rather than flow and phrasing (by which, I mean rhythm and meter used musically, rather than the stilted music of dust settling on turning pages). On stages where slam is celebrated, people pay attention to the person and their voice more then the words or the meaning and of course, all enjambment and the power of linebreaks and shape are lost to that "slam intonation" the one that lets people know they're listening to a poem just as the droning of a priest lets everyone brace themselves (and the knees) for a sermon. Take for example, Beau Sia and compare the delivery to that of Williams, how the vowels stretch, the way that words are attacked. Ultimately, I'd like to reconcile the two and technology seems like the way to do it. What I'm working toward is displaying poems on the page while providing the audio of how I would read the work alongside it, letting the words shape the voice rather than the opposite. To be clear, I'm not shitting on slam fans or people who love the page. To be sure, I've found pleasure in both, I just think that there's something missing and that this division, these two ways are really just people taking detours when what I feel people should be doing is stopping to build a bridge.
Oh, I understand that. Philosophers often consider language to be technology, not to mention linguists and writers as well. My first philosophy professor was fond of saying that "language is like eyeglasses through which we view the world." I have found this to be useful in teaching others to speak English as the very structure of language fundamentally changes how people express themselves. This is interesting to me, since I haven't much considered how current technologies will be used in relating to people who will exist. What I was getting at specifically, was the question of how stories will operate when there is the awareness of an existing body of fact, unaltered by human perspective and experience for the listeners to check the stories against (in the case of a person talking to another about the past). Surely exaggeration, embellishment and bullshitting will be around for a long time, but it's the how that interests me.
What you're suggesting is only relevant if we assume that everything posted on facebook is true. What if Grandpa was a little story teller himself and everything that came out of his mouth - or on his timeline - was already bullshit? The past that we uncover is ultimately - and unwittingly - a mediated artifact simply by the fact that it is not experienced in the present.
That's so, but how many people already assume that everything they read on the internet is true? Or from historical sources? Not only that, but remember that timeliness are not only populated by self-posts; how many times have you been tagged in a photo taken by a friend, for example? Anyway, the whole subject is only valid if users do in fact, use these social media sites for their entire lives and if they continue to exist far enough into the future that a situation like the one proposed by the image. Given the speed with which the internet changes and that younger users are eschewing Facebook because their parents are on it, suggests to me that in as little as five years from now, social media will be radically different and may be structured very differently from our experience of it at the moment. For one, what if all the current issues regarding internet surveillance and tailored advertising, including the permanent retention of information รก la Facebook, are considered to be unacceptable? I doubt that will happen, but I do think that the internet will continue to be pretty volatile for quite a while.
Inarticulately I will say holy balls, man. This is wild to think about for sure. Reminds me of this story written by Isaac Asimov, The Last Question. If anyone hasn't read this I highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in this idea of a 'global consciousness'. Incredible and somewhat scary at the same time.If there is an ultimate goal to this technological progress it can best be represented in attempting to have a complete and unified history of self and consciousness. And it will all be in the Global Brain.
Holy balls is right. There is actually an institute that focuses on studying the Global Brain; aptly titled: The Global Brain Institute. I'll be giving a talk there in October (Oct 4) and will be starting my Ph.D there sometime in 2014. I'll be sure to write a lot more about the Global Brain in the future.
Hey woah, congrats. I missed this news if you shared it elsewhere. Thanks for the badge. I've been completely overwhelmed thinking about this idea more over the last couple of days -- it's uncharted territory. I'm conflicted, because I disapprove of filming/photoing young children and then sharing the results everywhere; seems like a violation of privacy. At the same time, watching old home videos of myself, of which I have but a few, is very odd and unique.I'll be giving a talk there in October (Oct 4) and will be starting my Ph.D there sometime in 2014.
Brings to mind Deb Roy's, The Birth of a Word talk from TED. Simply for the amount of information his child will have about his first 3 years of life.