If a completely inane and inconsequential event transpires, but there is no record of it on the Internet, did it really happen? Truly this is the question of the decade.
In an age in which Kim Kardashian feels that it is imperative to upload a picture of herself in a bikini every 24 hours and Miley Cyrus won’t rest until all 8 million of her Twitter followers have seen her new haircut from every possible angle, the art of the overshare has never been more in vogue. You could chalk this up to sheer delusional egotism, except that those 8 million people actually care what Miley’s hair looks like. Therefore, the law of supply and demand necessitates that these pictures reach the public.
Personally, I feel a tad unsettled if I drink a cappuccino without immortalizing it in a quaint sepia-toned filter on Instagram, so I completely understand this compulsion. The alternative is unthinkable: I could very well be the only person on Earth to know that I consumed an adorable coffee beverage at some hipster hangout in Venice Beach. While this may not be as grave a thought as Kim K. existing somewhere barely-clothed without our awareness, it’s still pretty shudder-inducing stuff.
Thankfully, there are plenty of outlets for this bizarre addiction. If a thought or idea can be condensed into 140 characters or less, it can be quickly and efficiently plastered across cyberspace via Twitter. Many celebrities utilize this valuable resource to enter the homes of their legions of fans and overload them with personal information about the minutia of their daily lives. For the more verbose, Facebook is ideal. Not only are you able to share pertinent bits of information like where you ate lunch (and with whom), espousing your controversial opinions on political hot topics in paragraph form has never been easier. Literally with the click of a button, your 500+ friends can simultaneously be inundated with your views on fiscal policy. It’s like magic.
So when did we as a generation become information junkies? It’s hard to remember a time when I wasn’t clued in on every aspect of the lives of my friends, my friends’ friends and that one guy who went to my high school but doesn’t look remotely familiar to me. There was a time when that would have been considered creepy, but that was before Facebook presented us with a safe, legal, socially accepted alternative to stalking.
Information has never been more immediately present or readily available than it is at this moment. It comes through our laptops and through our phones at unprecedented speeds. Hit the refresh button, and there’s another wall of text and images to process. Celebrity culture, social networking and the sleepless 24-hour media make certain of that. We’ve become addicted. I’ve deleted my Facebook about five times, for increments ranging from hours to weeks, and each time I’ve been drawn back to it with a mixture of relief and self-loathing. I’ve since accepted the fact that I’m destined to be one of those hypocrites who goes on about the evils of Facebook and the qualities that make it similar to an opiate, all while dutifully checking my notifications every five minutes.The truth is, this age of information junkies has its merits. There is something to be said for the ease with which we access world news and are exposed to a wealth of ideas. This circulation of ideas has made the world smaller, and by extension, it could be argued that we are more connected than ever before. Still, the fact remains that Nicholas Kristof has approximately 7 million fewer Twitter followers than Miley Cyrus. I think the implications speak for themselves.
