Readers

Last night, while re-reading and skimming sections of one of my favorite books, A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White -- in anticipation of reading his newest, Jack Holmes and His Friend -- the inevitable finally happened. The spine of the pink cover's front edge had already detached from the pages on the side a few years ago, yet still held on in the back. With a turn of about page 12, the chunk of pages 1-40 fell out. As you can imagine, I was crestfallen. Sure, poke fun, or think, a hashtag of "firstworldproblems" could easily accompany relaying this in a tweet. But, I cherish this book and had been refusing to get a new one despite its decrepitude . It's the copy I had in college, bought because a writing professor and mentor recommended it to me to discover White's illuminating and still-relevant prose, the copy I used in my American Novel class to lead a two day discussion on its first three chapters, the copy with my marginal notes and underlines -- in pencil, I promise! And, of course the first chapter -- an example of some of my favorite writing ever, and the best part of the whole book -- has to be the problem. In the midst of e-readers' increasing popularity, I couldn't help but think of my claws-in-the-dirt stance to refuse them in a sea of recent discussions about DRM and the environmental impact of print versus digital. Some may tell me condescendingly with their marketing and/or computer science/tech degrees, "This wouldn't happen if it was on a tablet." But, despite the way one of my favorite hard copy print books fell apart on me, I still resist a tablet reader, and here are the reasons:

1. I like numerical assignments to pages and despise percentages. The percent system makes it much more difficult to go back and re-read (what would one say during a class discussion or book club meeting? Let's all go to about 12% in?)
2. I cannot sell a digital book back.
3 I cannot lend a digital book to a friend. I know the different companies are working on lending features, but believe it will only be limited to that device within the company (i.e. Kindle users can lend to Kindle users only). And, even if they make lending broader, the personal quality of what lending is all about to me is lost. I recently put two of my Margaret Atwood hard copies on lend, both of which I enjoyed in Florida at different times in my life, and both of which I associate these memories with, and to me, passing them on is also like passing on that part of myself.
4. What about author signings? Two books I hold dear the most are signed by the author.
5. I cannot indulge in the pleasure of perusing used bookstores like A Reader's Corner for an hour and stumbling upon good cheap finds I ordinarily wouldn’t have thought about reading before. I cannot support local shops like Carmichaels. Even if they offer the option of purchasing e-books on their website, part of the local book shop experience is going to the shop itself, getting recommendations from the clerks or talking about books with them.

While I'm sure I can think of more, these are the primary reasons. In the boom of social media and ipads, writers are responding differently from the Margaret Atwood full embrace to the T.C. Boyle fear over what may become of such a plugged in culture. I fall somewhere in the middle. But, I know this much: I will take reading those first 40 pages in a hunk outside the bound book over caving and buying something like a Nook.

Or maybe I can duct tape the spine! I'm sure the dark gray would provide a poignant chiaroscuro against the book's hot pink front. At least better than the disappointing cover of the new edition in its boring, nasty brown and tan hues. That's for sure.

He Doesn't Sound Like Someone Who Would Have a Hairy Back

The printed page is obsolete. Information isn't bound up anymore. It's an entity. The only reality is virtual. If you're not jacked in you're not alive. - "I, Robot... You Jane," S1, Ep. 8 of The TV Show

I'm not a person. See me not exist? I'm not on the book of faces, and I don't tweet like a bird. Deleting my Facebook about eight or nine months ago was liberating, and a good number of people have asked me if I miss it, which usually causes me to pause. I think about it, and realize that I haven't even thought about it until they've asked me, so I can say that's a no. I'm broadcasting it in the months after that October post I wrote when I first started this blog that I don't at all. I promised myself I wouldn't write about it anymore, and this post won't be about Facebook. Okay, okay. It is, but it's more about something larger, which is the digital world. Obviously I still live and participate in it without being a part of much social media. I e-mail, text, work a job that glues me to a computer screen for eight hours a day and sometimes more, and read my news mainly on the internet. I'm a cafeteria follower of the digital world. I pick and choose what aspects of it I want to be a part of. And, I've been trying to figure out where I draw the lines. I don't own a TV, which is similarly liberating, but I indulge in a good deal of streaming Netflix and DVDs. I have a laptop and find myself using it for everything, which is part of what I fear about our current technology, especially with that ipad2 commercial where it espouses the greatness of it by showing how it's everything in one device. No, thank you. I still don't know what technologies I find acceptable for myself and which ones I'll pass on. I just recently got a smart phone. Since it was a free upgrade, and the plan was comparable to what I was paying anyway, I figured why not. I hardly use the internet on it though. The only difference is that I'm now updated every time I get an email, which I don't even like and have been meaning to change the settings to disallow that. The week before I got it, I was out at Wick's for the weekly Team Trivia I've been doing for about two years now, and at one point, I scanned my friends, and every single person in our large booth had their head down, crouched over their phones, tapping their screens in silence. I turned to my friend, Alex. "Exhibit A of why I don't want a smart phone." Do we now come out with friends to sit and look at our phones? Is that facebook status, tweet, or Angry Birds game more important than having a conversation in person? Yet, I still caved and got one when I said I never would. Was part of it peer pressure? A response to the jokes I received with my old phone? I'm sad to admit, yes, partly. But, it's scared me into thinking if I gave in to that -- something I never said I would -- what other technology I adamantly refuse will I gradually and inevitably embrace?

At times, I feel like a paranoid lunatic, or think that's how I'm being perceived by some people. Either as someone who's needlessly cautious or someone who's a snob. The issue I'm questioning is one that's been around for quite some time. While thinking about it the past few months, I felt like being conflicted with the digitalization of information and interaction was something specific to the last five years or so. I recently watched an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the campy and self-aware 90'stastic first season, and it hit the same mark I'm writing about now. I found myself falling into the same stance as Giles, the dry but wry British librarian, who outright resists computers altogether, instead of Jenny Calendar, another teacher, who thinks he's a snob for it. He explains at the end of the episode that he doesn't like computers because they don't smell, and as he bumbles, "books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly." I've also wondered how prescient the last chapter of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad is. It thrusts forward to a future world in which people have "hand sets," which I assume is some device like a phone attached to one's hand, people T, meaning text. There was some law passed to protect personal digital information, because it's implied that certain companies somehow exploited people's personal information for marketing purposes, though specific names like Google, Facebook, or Twitter never appear.  Language has changed, and words like "freedom," "democracy," and "story" are all written with quotes around them, because they no longer have any meaning. Text language is ubiquitous and is characterized by abbreviating everything while taking out all vowels. In my experience with the way some people in my life email and text, I can see this shift happening, which is sad. Language evolves, and I'm a strong supporter, but not to the extent of wiping out core elements of what makes our language artful and intelligent. If someone texted or emailed me in this way, I probably wouldn't respond. Or would I have to if everyone in my life did? The hashtags and @reply symbols I sometimes use in emails with my friends ironically, and partly to poke fun at how base digital communication is would no longer be ironic. It would be how I would have to communicate. This gets at the core reason of my resistance to some digital media: it was supposed to make people smarter, but it's seemed to do the opposite, clearly evidenced by the way our language has been dumbed down by it.

Personal interaction. This is the reason I give when asked about why I don't participate in social media. "Because I value personal interaction more," I'll say. It's an easy answer to give, and I've given that same rote response so much I've lost what it even means at times. I also say it's to free myself of distractions. I'm distracted enough as it is to the point where I now put my phone in another room and close the door during activities like a good Saturday morning writing session, and even then I'm on my computer with Gmail or Youtube just a few key strokes away. I often wonder how I get any reading or writing done. That's not to say I don't enjoy what digital media has given me. I like that I can cultivate my own media experience. I can watch the TV shows and movies I want to on Hulu or Netflix without having to own a TV and bring in what I don't want into my home. I can email with a friend who's currently teaching English in Vietnam and follow the blog of her daily events. I can find any previous This American Life podcast I remembered from three years ago and want to re-listen to. I can indulge my love of pop culture while particularly bored at work by texting cast parties back forth with Alex. My ipod is pretty convenient, another technology I once resisted and now have come to accept. Although, I'm guilty of itunes purchases instead of buying from Ear-x-tacy, the local music store in town, and also downloading music in torrents. But, I draw the line at e-readers. And another major line is when it comes to something like real human interaction, which can't be replaced by media. Once, I skyped and was crept out by it. Not just by the audio and visual delay, because even if that glitch was fixed, which I'm sure has been by now, it would still be unsettling to have an interaction with this computer screen, pretending as if it's the loved one. I'm someone who likes to think before I express an idea, who chooses his words carefully. Sometimes this is why I may be a little quiet in social settings, apart from some shyness. This quality I have is part of what makes me want to text or write an email or message instead of speaking in person. It's more controlled. It's not chaotic and free-flowing. I can ponder. So, it's not always easy for me. And maybe this why I'm afraid I'll eventually give in to what I say I won't now. But, I keep in mind that placing more emphasis on written communication as opposed to real time isn't authentic, and that's been my goal by taking out some digital communication in the last almost-year, to experience people in all their quirks and personality more authentically. In that Buffy episode, Willow dates someone over the internet (who yes, in true Buffy fashion, turns out to be a demon), and Buffy is leery, pointing out that she can't know him based on what he writes in messages, saying "he could be a circus freak -- he's probably a circus freak!" and says, jokingly but with a hint of seriousness to Willow, "He could have a hairy back." And, she responds, "Well... he doesn't sound like someone who would have a hairy back." As silly as this point is garnered from the show, Willow's reaction is similar to how people now view interactions with people online, as genuine and wrapped in the illusion of connection, when true connection can't be replaced by the cold, unfeeling, visual field of the computer or phone screen.

What about you? What is your relationship with how you interact with the people in your life and technology? Does such a heavy reliance on digital communication bother you like it does me, at times? Do you ever make an effort to limit it? Or not? Do you think that anything that helps being connected to more people is something good? Do you really think things like social media connect us to the world more? I've been telling myself my smart phone purchase can be offset by lack of FB or twitter. I guess in the end, it's all about a balance. And, I've been doing well in the last few months. I have noticed a difference in the way I value the real communication I have with people, even if they are status updating at the dinner table just a pizza or burrito away.

Late Night Internets

I now have the internet in my house, which means I can search old live Judy Garland performances on youtube when I come home after a night of drinking with friends : )

Perfect end to a night.

I will still never get a TV! or sign back on to facebook!

The Facebooks

I finally did it. And the moment I wrote that sentence, I realized how melodramatic it sounds, given what I did. I deleted my facebook *insert your shocks and gasps here*. The decision came after months of deliberation, and no doubt, annoyance, on the end of my friends, particularly my roommate, Lizz, at the number of times I would say, in the middle of lull in conversation and I was given to moments of reflecting, "I think I'm going to delete my facebook." The dramatic tone of the first sentence I wrote was natural, I guess, because when I would mention it to friends, I was met with varied reactions, but the majority was that of shock. This astonishment at the idea of someone leaving an internet site is one of the multiple reasons I decided to leave.

Calling facebook a mere "internet site" may have seemed flip of me, because, let's be honest, we all know it's become the internet site. When I joined -- way back in the hey day of 2005 when it was a fun way to see who else was on my college campus -- it was on a smaller scale. Now, it's dominated all other sites in the world of the internet, but to me, it's had more of an impact -- dominating all other means of connection and communication, not just on the internet, but in reality. Ah yes, reality. A concept people have lost sight of in the boom of facebook. It really has become what postmodern philosopher Baudrillard coined as the fourth level of simulation, that is, the ultimate postmodern simulacra. To put this idea in simpler terms -- it should be because postmodern philosophy can be pretty damn full of itself -- facebook has replaced the real world, and by extension, someone's profile avatar on facebook has replaced him or her. I was met with a series of questions when I expressed contemplation over leaving to friends. How am I going to know when someone's birthday is? If I genuinely care about someone in my life, I'll know his or her birthday, and if I happen to forget, I will apologize because that's how life is. How am I going to see new pictures my friends took? At their house in their living room or on their camera or computer if they show me. How will I know about events? By getting invited to them, dare I say it, in person or via phone call or reading about it. What if a friend needs to send me a message? To quote a blunt blogger I read, "if you're too stupid to where you don't know how to use email, then I don't want to be your friend." I'm not that harsh, but I take a similar toned down stance. These questions illustrate my point. People have forgotten the "connections" made on facebook are easily transferable to real life. Let's face it, that type of connection is far more personal and sincere, which I prefer.

Not to be paranoid, but another reason is the state of facebook's privacy policy and how scary it has become given who can now view what information. This chart is pretty informative. The source of it claims that he likes facebook and doesn't want this collected data motivating anyone to delete their account. Well, here I am. I can't see how anyone can view this chart and not, at least, think about it. I don't want the entire internet knowing I've listed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, How I Met Your Mother, Dollhouse, and Dexter as my favorite TV shows or Romy and Michele's High School Reunion as one of my favorite movies. Embarrassment has nothing to do with my reluctance -- heck, I've provided this movie and these shows here -- which has more to do with the way I'm being defined. As someone who has to deal with superficial identity signifiers shaping my image for people on a daily basis, I'm pretty reluctant to have anyone with a computer creating some idea of me based on information I've listed. They don't know me by these litanies. Contact information on the site is, perhaps, even more frightening. Proponents of social networking and the "free information" age may claim I have control of who can access this information, but to what extent is this really true? Or will be true in the future with the trend this chart shows facebook is heading toward? Facebook stores all its users' information, even that which they delete. I've heard the only way to really delete an account is to delete all of the information on the account -- I did this -- and also all of the friends on the account -- I didn't do this, because who has time? -- to where the profile is blank, and then select the option not to "de-activate" the account so it can be re-activated at any time, but to really delete it. And even then, facebook still captures your computer's IP address. All of this gives me the distinct feeling facebook owns my information, and by extension, owns me. Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist if you wish.

Leaving facebook has a certain connotation as a radical anti-social act, according to a few reactions I've gotten. I'm leaving for the very opposite reason. Facebook has drastically changed the way we interact with one another. Since when does a "like" of a status or "poke" connote real communication? People on facebook are being assessed by the information they list and not their personality in all of its quirks and eccentricities. There's a reason I haven't kept in touch with that guy in the back of my freshman English class in high school who I can barely recognize now, and I want to keep it that way. I want to live in the real world.

It's pure coincidence I came to this decision the same day that movie The Social Network came out. I promise. I don't know much about the movie and don't have that strong of a desire to see it, but it sounds like it's more about how facebook got started, which I don't really take issue with. I take issue with what it's become.

If you don't have my email address, please respond in a comment, and I'll get it to you.