Do you use web 2.0 services such as Wikipedia?
I do, and I find myself often resorting to trusting such sources more that traditional centrally edited services such as your household encyclopaedia because the online variant has been filtered by countless editors.
However, a growing unease is emerging with the web 2.0 bandwagon. Are we destined for a world where we only associate with likeminded people? Where we only read the media that agrees with our opinion? Some web 2.0 critics would argue that we are, and that are blind acceptance of the authority of media shaped by the masses is akin to a new age of Digital Maoism…
“The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it?”
The web 2.0 detractors have been quiet in recent times, slowly gathering their voice as they witness the phenomena that is “social media” unravel before their very eyes. Youtube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Bebo - the list is endless. First it’s the youth pushing the envelope, then it is business and finally the mass market.
As a consumer of Wikipedia amongst other “web 2.0″ sites, I have to confess their usefulness. How could a traditional encyclopaedia research team compete with literally thousands of contributors to the online variant? The strength of web 2.0 is its core pretext of “user generated content” or in other words “democratic rather than centralized editorial“.
The decentralization of social media means everyone has a voice. In Covey-esque terms we can look at how the internet and mobile has empowered human society to reclaim its natural voice after generations of industrial suppression. Web 2.0 will do more for individual freedom, we are led to believe, than the political forces that shape the modern world.
Why then should the “inventor” of virtual reality, Jaron Lanier, take exception to how Web 2.0 is being used by the masses?
Lanier argues in an article published in The Edge that social media, in practise, is less about the underying values of democracy and more about mob-rule - i.e. what is right is not guided by principles but by the loudest voices.
Lanier refers to the “appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force.”
Surowiecki’s Wisdom of the Crowds highlights instances in which the hive mind is surprisingly accurate - such as taking the average estimate for the number of jellybeans in a jar across a large audience. The subtext to the book itself is “Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations”. As Lanier points out, this social conscience underlies the market forces that Adam Smith refers to as the “hidden hand”.
However, the challenge we face is in investing our faith in the collective. Digital Maoism is the party spoiler in the web 2.0 bandwagon, here to instill a degree of perspective in how we place trust in our online authorities. As Surowiecki himself writes, we run the risk of being “too connected”.
I agree with Lanier’s points and am thankful for somebody highlighting the existence of “Digital Maoism”. However, as Lanier notes, it is the services such as MySpace that claim no editorial or authority that are the real shining examples of the web2.0 boom, but the draw of connectedness itself may narrow our global perspective.
Roush’s weblog refers to an interesting university case study that demonstrates (for what it’s worth) the value of remaining connected to the “unconnected”.
Scott Page researcher at the University of Michigan, had his agents compete until they differentiated into three groups, Dumb, Intelligent, and Random. Then he had them solve problem as groups. The Intelligent group outperforms the Dumb group, but not by very much. But the Random group almost always outperforms the Intelligent group. Page’s theory is that the reason for this is that even if the less intelligent groups know less, what they know is different.
What are your thoughts on web2.0?
Do you believe that our ability to surround ourselves with media and relationships that agree and match our own values will rather than extend choice inevitably confine us to a very narrow outlook on the world?
Do you believe that Lanier is correct in asserting mob rule threatens web 2.0?
