Continuing my previous post, Your Brain Online, I need to mention Jaron Lanier’s book You Are Not A Gadget as well. Lanier, a computer scientist and expert in virtual reality, has written a manifesto equating the Internet with drugs and online bingeing, urging the need for self-restraint. He analyzes the web’s effects on society in general and concludes that the damage has already been done to our creative freedom and our creative ownership:
“The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the Web. Deterioration only began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called “Web 2.0″ designs. These designs valued the information content of the web over individuals. It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data. [...] Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class. Only the aggregator (like Google) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor. This is why newspapers are dying. [...] [T]he Internet has become anti-intellectual because Web 2.0 collectivism has killed the individual voice.”
For more, read Lanier’s compilation of web resources related to his thesis and his article in the Wall Street Journal World Wide Mush (Jan. 8).
