From the Balcony

Digital Savages

Statler: I wonder if there really is life on another planet.

Waldorf: Why do you care? You don’t have a life on this one?

I confess that I’m confused by this phrase, digital native.

In addition to implying a kind of behaviour, online social networking, it also carries the connotation that one is (though I cringe at using the phrase) technically savvy. And yet, no skill is required to create an account on some social networking site, make a few “friends”, and pour forth an endless torrent of vacuous....

But, before saying any more, perhaps I’d better establish my own credentials. If you’re going to accord me the courtesy of reading this little rant, then the least I need to do is give you enough information to judge whether it might be worth the trouble. As Jeron Lanier has observed, you have to be somebody before you can share yourself.

I wrote my first Fortran programme nearly 40 years ago, in high school. Of course, in those days, our school didn’t actually have a computer (hand-held calculators were rare enough, and digital watches weren’t mass-produced, either, yet) so my teacher had to read it and assess what it might do. Yet within a couple of years I was writing machine code for a succession of home built computers: first a Signetics 2650 demo board, later a 6502 project, finally a commercial Z80 project kit. I have a Bachelor’s degree in computer science, and probably enough post-graduate papers in various topics to string something else together, though I’ve never bothered. My interests went off in a different direction, and I completed my PhD in a different discipline entirely. I’ve spent years working as a commercial programmer and network consultant, and although I do something different these days, I can still turn my hand to a bit of C if pushed.

But I’m not a digital native, apparently.

I have a web site, much neglected, but I don’t blog, tweet, or collect faux “friends”. In the evenings, after work, I spend a few minutes clearing my email, and that’s pretty much it. I have a mobile phone for phone calls. It could receive email, though I choose not to, and the only texting I do is to confirm rendezvous with my mates for coffee or beer.

The very concept of virtual sex strikes me as ludicrous. What do you ... um ... do?

Nope. Definitely not a digital native.

As far as I can make out, a Digital Native is just what we used to call a geek but, significantly, minus the requirement for any kind of technical expertise. Banging away (pardon the pun) determinedly on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, requires no expertise. All that you need is an ability to write (I use the term loosely, because actual spelling and grammar are deprecated in the modern social milieu) and a modest vocabulary, which may consist largely of abbreviations, because most of these people can’t even type. Clearly, the nuances which make words like chuckle and guffaw totally different, but are totally lost in the ridiculous acronym LOL, are unimportant to the Facebook illiterati. (Yes, Microsoft; you can put away your little wiggly red line, because it is a real word.)

That is not to say that everyone using such sites is a waste of good air. Of course there must be many people using social networking tools for a worthwhile purpose, to communicate a worthwhile message. Staying in touch with real flesh-and-blood friends is worthwhile in both those senses. But I have my doubts about the value of Second Life, tweeting celebrities, or tweeting at all for that matter, and what on Earth are we to make of someone with 100 “friends”? It would be funny if it wasn’t sad.

Ok, if someone wants to alienate themselves from real human relationships, in order to pursue empty, pseudo-friendships online, that’s their business. All I ask is that we stop ceding these people any kind of awe and respect for their technological prowess ... because mere end use of the trappings of technology is no evidence at all of expertise, or even of worthwhile endeavour.

Most of these people, the digital natives, are Eloi. I’m afraid that’s a literary reference. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Wikipedia will give you a clue but, to really understand it, you’ll have to (gasp! shock! horror!) read a book.

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