#DigitalVertigo

Digital Vertigo : how today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing, and disorienting us by Andrew Keen
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 302.231 K

Are you a member of a social network? If you're like me, you belong to several. Between Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Groupon, and any number of other online communities, it is easier than ever to connect to other like-minded people. Sounds great, right?

@ajkeen (the author, Andrew Keen's Twitter handle) disagrees. In this book, he makes the argument that the more connected we are, the lonelier and less powerful we become. He acknowledges that the social media revolution is the most significant since the Industrial Revolution, but at a cost. It is so easy to voice our opinions and share our ideas and our whereabouts that we often alienate others. People may say things online that they wouldn't necessarily say out loud, which can offend or just plain annoy our online connections. Also, the more we share online, the less weight our words carry. Our points of view become just a part of the stream.

Keen also points out that as we join more networks and make more connections, we share more information about ourselves in more places. We want to participate in our networks and share with our "friends." Meanwhile, we complain about online security and privacy and want to keep our online information to ourselves. There's a catch-22 between wanting to share more and wanting that information to be private.

Finally, Keen says that we become lonelier as the very term "friend" becomes more and more shallow. Our networks, whether made up of "followers" or "friends" or some other term, are often surface connections. People collect connections, but do not often seek out relationships with those people. Why do we want to be so connected to people we care so little for?

This is a great book to make social networkers think about the information they share and who they share it with. We should re-evaluate our goals in using social networks. This book is a real eye-opener!