I think the only thing worse than sharing mundane details about yourself for the world to see is to be the TIME writer that has sunk so low as to whine about it in a front-page article (yes, it made it to the time.com home page). Really? This counts as journalism these days?
No, but it counts as selling eyeballs to advertisers, which is the business Time is in. It's the same business all magazines are in.
My 25 things post on my blog has ended up #2 in Google for "25 things about me" and I am getting 200 or so visits a day to that post.
Now, I am not monetizing my blog and don't gain anything from the traffic, but it is interesting to see how much attention this meme is getting all of the sudden. Especially since it is nothing new.
In order to survive the transition these organizations are going to have to build respect from scratch, once again becoming authoritative sources. Yes, aggressive editorials is an easy way to attract clicks. But it will kill your business model in the long run.
Before the web people took what these publications said for granted. Now anyone can go investigate prime sources with a few clicks. This raises the bar for journalistic integrity. It remains to be seen if the traditional publications rise to the challenge or sink to the level of tabloids.
Press here to post this message on facebook!
Most people aren't funny, they aren't insightful, and they share way too much. Facebook is a loose social network; a "friend" on Facebook might translate to someone you'd barely recognize in real life.
This is a problem inherent with any group. In real life if you paid this much attention to all of 600 people you'd have the exact same problem. It reminds me of the Internet stalker problems that people've started to be warned against. You need to treat the Internet like you would anything else - and offline, you'd never have a party with hundreds of people and pay attention to all of them. If you want Facebook to get better, limit yourself.
If your friends bore you, get better friends. I've only seen a few of these, but the ones I've read were actually really fascinating to read. Writer friends are the best.
When did magazines get this awful? I commented this on the Newsweek article yesterday, too. Weren't these both good magazines two years ago? Why've they turned so pulpy?
Point of story: could it be you who have changed, not Time or Newsweek?
(Though maybe they really did change -- media quality is a hard thing to deal with quantitatively or objectively.)
Though Newsweek didn't use to have a "humiliated people of the week" column, and "conventional wisdom watch" used to seem interesting rather than just sniping. And I did like the quotes of the week page.
Though if this is mainstream journalism, and this is from Time.com, I am sufficiently confident that I am not the only one wasting my time (assuming I even agree with the author)
As much as I used to hate those chain letters I mentioned above, I surprised myself and took part in the 25 things meme on Facebook. I actually found it pretty edifying. I wrote some things I didn't realize I was going through at the time and learned some things I didn't know about my friends.
Did I need Facebook to do this exercise? No. But the fact that Facebook facilitated it is far from "stupid," as the author suggests it is.
1.) I don't usually fill out chain lists. 9.) I've made People Magazine's most beautiful people list 6 years running. 13.) I really like 30 Rock. 16.) I've never tasted my own urine. 17.) David Blaine is actually just a character in my imagination. 19.) I was half of the men at the million man march. 22.) Four of the things on this list are true. 23.) #22 isn't one of them. 25.) I really, really hope someone sends me $25.
Oh well, that's how people are I guess.
I guess most people have no imagination.
On the contrary: we're more productive than any other generation. We have instant communication, incredibly powerful tools for computing information, and creating things is easier now than it's ever been before. Because of that, people have more time to unwind. Possibly it's even necessary to keep our minds relaxed. Those things get ignored by Time Magazine, which likes sensationalism and negativity because it sells.
JOEY WAS MY FAVORITE, TOO!
