Buzz off

For all you Gmail users out there—and if you’re not on it, get with it—your inboxes were invaded last week by Buzz, the Google mashup of Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter. Buzz peeked at your email history, automatically added a handful of your frequent contacts to your Buzz feed, and directed you to the feed itself, which allows you to post updates and comment on other people’s updates. As if we weren’t already driven to extreme online procrastination by the existing parade of social networking options, we have a new integration of voyeuristic/exhibitionist faux interaction to distract us.

The official Gmail blog posted this last Tuesday: “Today, we’re launching Google Buzz, a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting and share updates, photos, videos and more. Buzz is built right into Gmail, so there’s nothing to set up—you’re automatically following the people you email and chat with the most.” One, this is a scary development, even forgetting, for a moment, the privacy issues raised by Foreign Policy’s Evgeny Morozov, who writes, “Without you ever touching Google Buzz’s privacy settings, the entire world may know who you correspond with (yes, including that secret lover of yours and that secret leaker at the White House).” Two, the legal problems alone are mind-boggling, and indeed, a Harvard law student has apparently already taken the bait and filed a class action suit on behalf of everyone who was automatically signed into Buzz. Three, beyond this range of privacy concerns, Buzz’s debut raises big questions about how our generation sees itself, and about what we expect from our relationships with other people.

Much has been made of our courtship culture, which expects sex now and connection later. Anyone whose parents read that New York Times article about “hooking up”—yes, that’s what the kids are calling it—is rolling their eyes right about now. But perhaps our means of communicating, of building relationships, is in part to blame for how dedicated we are to putting the cart before the horse. The Internet doesn’t just give us unfettered access to knowledge—it gives us unfettered access to each other. A friend recently described a bungled romantic encounter: Set up via text message, the pair had gchatted, arranged to meet by email, became Facebook friends, and then failed to meet in person because a text message did not deliver properly. This is not to say that we don’t socialize anymore. We do, and some evidence suggests that social networking sites actually increase some users’ in-person social interactions. But reading back over that last sentence, there’s still something sick in the way we’re dividing up our encounters, as if a date can be divided into wall post units, or a phone call is worth six text messages.

Buzz was just the most recent, and blatant, evidence that we’re losing sight of the real purpose of new technologies, and allowing them to cripple our social skills. Yes, Twitter did help Iranian activists organize, and yes, we think it’s terrific that you kept in touch with a friend from elementary school through Facebook, but these uses are exceptions. None of the connections we maintain online would be impossible without the social networking sites, so are we really gaining so much in making them easier to maintain?

The entire value of communication has been reversed. Where we were once socially rewarded for making the effort to write, telegram, or call, we’re now punished for failing to text, gchat, or tweet. We spend all our time wondering why she hasn’t called, instead of being pleased when she does. The cost of communication is so low that we’re penalized for all the time we spend not doing it. Technology should free us from previous constraints, allowing us to pursue real experiences—make art, exercise, debate and wander—with the knowledge that we can make virtual contact if necessary, whenever we want. But instead we’re connected all the time, tethered to an array of hooked up devices without which we can hardly tell left from right.

The problem isn’t necessarily the technology itself, but us. Our worst competitive tendencies run rampant as we feverishly develop online personas within every social network, and then neglect to consider how else we could be spending the same amount of time. The arrival of Buzz was actually unique, in our opinion, for the immediate skepticism that met it. Maybe Buzz was the first in what will surely be a series of web inventions that are immediately rejected for their redundancy.

For now, let’s lead ourselves out of temptation:

While it might be hard to figure out, it is possible to turn off Google Buzz. Scroll all the way down the inbox page and read the small links at the bottom. Click “turn off buzz,” skip class, and do something.

Sarah Leonard is a Columbia College senior majoring in history. Kate Redburn is a Columbia College senior majoring in history and African studies. Shock and Awe runs alternate Mondays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com