With
the invention of the internet, as with other new forms of mass media, it was
heralded as one of the most important inventions ever. After being assigned a
messianic role, there are always high expectations and, in a sense, the World
Wide Web delivered. The capabilities are almost endless with our ability to
share and disseminate information. However, it seemed that as more people got
involved with the use of the internet, the more bogged down things become.
Again, as in my last blog, the vision of Aldous Huxley’s, A Brave New World, but that is more an issue of how we have come to
use internet rather than a commentary of the tool that the internet is.
There must be a system that works
to promote the ideas of liberty and democracy. This is difficult because most
tools available to us through the internet have adopted philosophies that are
more akin to, as Clay Shirky states in his TED talk, to a feudal system than a
democratic system. But, as is the case throughout history, as repressive regimes
try to take hold there is always a movement that bucks tradition and tries to
obtain more liberty. This movement for the internet is open source coding. Even
though we have this ability through internet start the movement, we seem to
lack the desire. Before we can even get to this open source coding, a change in
the way we use the internet has to be addressed. I believe that a process
called Inbox Zero can be used as an example of the best way to use the
internet.
The idea behind Inbox Zero is that
your time and attention are finite. It starts by looking at our email. We like
to say that we are able to multitask and yet, if we are honest with ourselves,
the result of us trying to multitask is less time spent on things that are
actually important to us. We do not reach our potential because we are always
worried about what is in our inbox. We are worried about what we have read but
not processed. This makes it important to process our emails rather than just
read them. Processing is more than checking our email. You go through the email
and the result is always an action of some sort. It is an action based email
process. This is a distinct change from the uses of the internet right now.
Now, the internet is mostly used for consumption. Consumption of our time
through the use of games and news feeds. Consumption of information through the
use of social media.
The issue is that we do not process what we
consume. So we always have things stored in our “inbox” of internet
consumption. The way that we process this information is largely through five
processes. The options for this process are: delete, delegate, respond, defer,
and do. They are all action based and would force us to start processing the
information that we, as internet consumers, use in our day to day lives. Originally,
this was meant to be separate actions based upon the type of email that was
received and your needs but with internet consumption, it is actually a five
step process.
The first option is to delete. If
used through the lens of internet consumption, this would have an enormous
impact on how we use the internet. This is because we spend so much of our time
concentrating on so many things that we never get anything done. This is huge
because, even though we are so worried about so many things, we still spend the
most of our time on websites that are important to us. This indicates that we
want to concentrate on those things but our worry keeps us from doing so. If we
“delete” those things that actually are not important, the websites that we
actually do not visit often, then our energies could be focused in a positive
way on the things we actually care about.
The second step, delegate, is a
little harder to fit into the auspice of internet consumption but I think that
in this context it can refer to what we choose to associate with while using
the internet. This is different from the delete option in that this would take
place after we have decided a particular website is worth our time. It is a
more refined way of processing the information. We look through and order the
information from most important to least important.
The third step, respond, has to do
with your initial response to the information you have received. This is the
emotional response and, while most would say to disregard this step, it is vital
that it not be skipped. This is because, before we can move on to any sort of
real action, we must deal with our emotions. Otherwise, we will not be any
different from the people who allow their emotions to guide them. For instance,
this past week, the right to marry for homosexuals was being discussed in our
Supreme Court. During that time, many of my friends on Facebook changed their
profile pictures to a red equal sign. Now, while this is not a bad thing, I
certainly encourage any form of self-expression, it brought up the idea of how effective this form of “activism” really is. It was an emotional response to a
highly charged discussion that, really, did not result in any particular
change. I would argue that this was important for my friends who support
marriage equality but, if it stops there, they have not completed the process
and have done nothing for the increase of liberty.
The fourth step, defer, has to do
with the information that, in step two, was delegated as least important. This
is information that will, eventually, need to be addressed, but, early on in
the process, is not important. For instance, if my friends who support marriage
equality were reading about how the proceedings were going, information on the
history of gay rights, while important, is not as important as the new
arguments being put forth.
The final step, do, is the idea
that, if you can do it now, do it! This is important because, if we only
consume information but do not act on this information, then it must be asked
what good it has done us. Again, using my Facebook friends, it would have been
important for them to figure out what were the most effective ways to get their
opinions to the decisions makers who can actually affect policy. Maybe they
could do this by formatting a group who could then start petitions that may
affect policy.
Overall, this is a very active
approach to internet consumption. The reason it is important for people to
adopt this approach is that it is the first step in getting to where people can
start using the internet and the open source approach to their internet
experience. However, the current apathetic use of internet just will not cut it
if, eventually we are to use the internet to secure and expand our liberty.
