Just Finished Reading: You are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier (FP: 2010)

Billed as a ‘dazzling polemic’ and ‘short and frightening’ I was quite looking forward to this – especially as it’s from a definite insider and early pioneer of Virtual Reality. To be honest I was more than a little disappointed. It’s possible that, 5 years after its first publication, I’d heard it all before or maybe it’s that such criticism peppered throughout this short (that got that right at a mere 207 pages) has kind of moved on in the intervening years.

It is entirely possible that ‘provocative’ criticism of Internet institutions, such as Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, and Twitter were indeed much more controversial back then so maybe a lot of the initial impact has been lost – that’s probably it. These days the author’s digs at the power of Facebook (which he criticises quite a bit) seem rather tame. Likewise his lament at the power of Wikipedia seems, at least to me, out of place. Personally I use it for quick reference – usually to settle arguments at work or with friends on-line – but I’d certainly never use it for anything serious. If I’d tried that in University a few years back I would have been laughed out of my seminar room. Although I was shocked a few years back when someone I knew referenced Wikipedia in their dissertation. How times change! Wikipedia is, I feel, one source of information. It is not, and certainly should not be regarded as, the only (or even primary) source of information.

I certainly ‘got’ much of what the author had problems with. He posited that because of lazy programming (as much as anything else) that people are expected to shoehorn themselves into applications that, because of their inherent limitations, dehumanise their users. Up to a point I understand that. Again personally I use the Internet as a tool and (largely) for fun – or to occasionally buy something (I’m looking at you Amazon). I don’t feel as if I’m being used by the Internet (or its designers) but maybe that’s because I’m not on Facebook? Do my Facebook using readers feel that the application is dehumanising them in any way?

I use Google a lot. If I want to know something or find something I, like millions of other people across the globe ‘Google it’. Yes, I also rarely, actually very rarely, go beyond the first page of hits – unless my search criteria is so vague that Google throws up all kinds of things. Then, generally, it’s my fault rather than the search engine itself. Sure there are dangers relying on Google and not going beyond the first page but they are dangers I recognise and am conscious of. I don’t expect Google to supply all of my answers or even point me in the direction of all (or even most) of them – but it helps, a lot. Yet again Google is a tool and should be used that way. After the results come up you need to use your own brain and your own experience to narrow the search further and decide when to stop looking – that’s the human part of the process.

I think possibly the author is too close to his subject and too close to the people who use the Internet without thought to write the book this is billed as being. Things are nowhere near as bad as he thinks they are. Sure, enough people use the various Internet applications without a great deal of input and a great deal of thought both before and after. People like that have always existed. It’s just that now they’re both more obvious and (probably) more vocal. I’m sure that there are lots of people who use the Internet as a tool and (generally) don’t let themselves be used by it. More than the author believes at any rate. Obviously the Internet is far from criticism free but I think that this book is far from the criticism that it needs. It may have broken the mould 5+ years ago but is now looking pretty dated. More up to date criticism to follow! Reasonable.