Shakespeare said: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Never has this been more true than in an age of social media, where we perform our daily dramas for the entire world to see.
Now our thoughts and feelings proliferate through cyberspace and clog up the Internet.
Tallulah Habib, social media activist, ITWeb
While we used to sit in our private rooms scribbling our thoughts and feelings on the hallowed pages of a journal, or confiding them to our closest of friends, in recent years this has all changed.
Blogging, and then micro-blogging, and then social media, put the microphone in our hands and a soapbox under our feet. Now our thoughts and feelings proliferate through cyberspace and clog up the Internet.
The intimate words: “Dear diary”, seem have been substituted with the proclamation: “Hello world!”
In some cases, this is wonderful. Brands have to keep on their toes, in case you tow your soapbox over to HelloPeter and start declaring the brands enemies of the people. Governments have less control over what messages citizens receive; and citizens have more power - to receive information, and to protest.
The flipside
Like all things, however, there's a downside. You have to wonder at the sense of self-importance that comes with such ability to broadcast.
An example is the reaction of Apple fans to the 4S on Tuesday night. Fans, through their own discussions and the rumours they had dug up from the blogosphere, had managed to convince themselves that Apple would release a brand new phone, the iPhone 5. When Apple failed to do so, they became irate. Twitter, Facebook and even Google Plus were saturated with snide comments about how Tim Cook just couldn't cut it, how they had presented a big event for nothing.
It wasn't nothing, exactly. There were impressive software upgrades and processor improvements. It wasn't a big event either, really. Apple held the event at Apple Central, versus the larger venues like San Francisco's Moscone Centre, where it has made great announcements recently. The event wasn't even Webcast.
It just wasn't what the Internet world expected, and therefore, there was outrage.
We see the same public outcry, stirred up out of Internet speculation or viral opinions, based on poor insight time and time again, because everyone wants to be heard, everyone wants to pitch in to 'The Discussion', join 'The Conversation'. Even if they have nothing to say!
Rich and famous
We have started to compete for attention, vying for followers and for hits, to be exalted as an influencer or hired as a brand ambassador. If the American revolution promised a chance for anyone to become rich, the Internet revolution has promised a chance for anyone to become famous, to become the next Justin Bieber, the next Tucker Max.
John B Thompson, in his book: “The Media and Modernity”, explains: “We are all unofficial biographers of ourselves, for it is only by constructing a story, however loosely strung together, that we are able to form a sense of who we are and of what our future may be.”
In the few years since he wrote those words (in 1995), we have become official biographers. Through the use of Web sites, blogs and social networks, we can document our lives; and now, with Facebook's Timelines, this will be done in a very real sense. It's no wonder, then, that we want to be interesting, want our lives to mean something. Everyone we ever meet, and a great many we don't, will soon know our life stories. Don't we want them to be special in some way?
We have to ask ourselves, though, generations from now, when historians are trawling through data centres filled with status updates and blog posts, what are they likely to think of us? Will they really thank us for our insights and opinions, and the valuable data about what we ate for breakfast, or will they think of us as the people of the 'Ego Age'?
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