I HAVE SEVERE OUTLINE-head. There is no way I'll be following LOST tonight. I wonder if that'll make it better?
But just a wee little program note to any and all of you cavorting through Social Media Week this week in Toronto...
Tonight at 9pm on PBS Frontline is a doc I think you should probably see. A long time ago, back in my pre-writing, I like TV storytelling days, I was a producer on this forward looking, big buzzword show. I did a bunch of think tanks back in the SHIFT magazine days with a guy named Douglas Rushkoff. Great guy, wonderful writer, big enthusiast for the brave new digital world and how it was all gonna change us all and how we were going to be big old multitaskers...
In the early 1990's Rushkoff wrote regularly for Wired Magazine, and wrote books that chronicled the changing mind of the digerati.
Well tonight, he's participating in this doc, and throwing a bit of cold water. The pre-release hype for this doc has focused on one fairly salient piece of info: all that hype about everybody younger growing up being big multitaskers -- turns out to be bullshit. Not borne out by the data. Turns out when you're doing nine things at once, you're not very good at any of those things -- no matter what your age or demo or how hip to the lingo you are.
I point this out because I think one of the articles I read about Social Media week today said something about how all the people who watch TV will be dead in a few years.
Well, jinkies, I was there the first time we started talking that foolishness. Sometimes, hype is just hype. And for those of us watching the CaseCamp Digital Media rah rah space from the "seen it before" seats, it's all rather...twee. I know you think that makes us all haters, and out of touch. But then again, we've been talking about this stuff since you were trying to find out where babies came from.
Watch the Doc. See what you think. If Doug Rushkoff can come to doubt the gospel, then man, you need to check yourself, dude. Cause once upon a time...
0 rumbles:
Post a Comment