An insightful post by The Scholars Stage:
I think he makes too sharp a distinction between the blogging world and the Twitter-sphere. Many of the problems he ascribes to Twitter were already showing up in the blogging space in the early-Aughts:
The World That Twitter Made
That is the problem with Twitter and the other aggregator sites. See the beliefs of the next generation of public intellectuals before you! See what happens to those who have only experienced America's public square through high-follower account on twitter!
Loofburrow is not alone in these beliefs. I suspect an entire class of pundits has internalized the idea that all of this is what public discussion is. Of course they don t believe in free expression, civil debate, the spirit of liberalism, and all of that jazz. To this generation those things are just words. The public sphere they have known has always been a bare-knuckle brawl.
It is certainly true that the rise of Twitter has exacerbated this problem:
One of his points, while true, points to a serious weakness for the blogosphere. Rapid-response to the news of the day does seem critical to blog success. Yet the premium on speed weakens analysis and fresh reporting. Those latter activities are the very areas usually cited as the strengths compared to traditional journalism.
One way to be fast is to do reflex-punditry of the sort we see on TV (especially on the McLaughlin Group). Talking heads react to the news and apply their individual ideological template. Eleanor Clift and Pat Buchanan don't bring new information to the viewers; they simply repeat the appropriate talking points. A lot of blogs end-up as nano-pundits: "More idiocy from the Bush Camp," "Go Rummy," etc.
...
Energy, confidence, conviction, self-nomination: traits that are ideal for writing memorable posts quickly. The problem is that such bloggers-- because they don't "accept suggestions" and are loath to admit mistakes-- will keep propounding their version despite new evidence dug up by others. The real power of blogs to facilitate collaboration gets stifled when this type of blogger becomes a key interpreter of a story or issue.
The need for rapid response also turns many bloggers into amplifiers for those self-nominated experts. With nothing to say ourselves, we link to those who write fast and take a clear position that we agree with. We end up with fewer serious dialogues and more of the formulaic debate pioneered by Crossfire.
Twitter, journalists, and our civic conversation
Update: 21 July
1. The Spring Claremont Review of Books has a review essay that has some relevance here.
To steal from Yeats, as we become more digital we become dumber yet filled with a “passionate intensity.” We lose our empathy and stop thinking; theories replace thought and indignation substitutes for study.
Our Bookless Future
Wolf’s answer comes, once again, from neuroscientific studies revealing significant cognitive and affective differences between print and screen reading, and between “deep reading” and fast reading—differences that show up in brain activity. In one study, researchers “were frankly surprised that just by asking their literature graduate students either to read closely or to read for entertainment, different regions of the brain became activated, including multiple areas involved in motion and touch.” In another, after one group read a story on paper, another on screens, the first reconstructed the plot more accurately than the second—for a book, unlike a virtual text, gives the brain a concrete spatial arrangement for the action. In sum, Wolf says, the paper reading brain has better memory, more imagination, immersion, and patience, and more knowledge than the screen reading brain. The physiology proves it.
Wolf’s pleading tone—“reader, please, come home”—follows from the fact that, in spite of the dangers, screen time is displacing book time. We are in trouble. “The more we read digitally,” she warns, “the more our underlying brain circuitry reflects the characteristics of that medium.” For six millennia, reading compelled the human brain to deepen and widen its cognitions. It is a glorious achievement, threatened by a “fundamental tension between our evolutionary wiring and contemporary culture.” We are moving backward.
This is a recipe for disaster as Lionel Trilling reminds us:
2. Twitter and Facebook claim they want to drive trolls and bots from their platforms. Journalists decry the “toxic environment” that prevails online. But one has to wonder if they are sincere.
When we say that a movement is 'bankrupt of ideas' we are likely to suppose that it is at the end of its powers. But this is not so, and it is dangerous for us to suppose that it is so, as the experience of of Europe in the last quarter-century suggests, for in the modern situation it is just when a movement despairs of having ideas that it turns to force, which it masks in ideology
Bots and trolls are extraordinarily good at feeding that “dopamine-addiction feedback loop” that keeps users engaged and on the platform. For lazy journalists these digital hamster wheels (the more toxic the better) provide ready-made stories perfect for social media. No need to pore over documents or even make phone calls. Just collect the tweets or posts and the story really writes itself.
Related:
Nit-picking free riders
Streaming TV's real business model
Tolstoy, Netflix, and the Intellectual-Yet-Idiot
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