Tom's Life Bits

Americans greet each new technological advance as if it had been delivered by the stork. We coo over each bundle of perfection, foreseeing only a brilliant future.

But eventually reality sets in. We recognize that along with all their blessings, these little darlings have transformed our lives in less beneficial ways. The airplane has delivered on its early promise of once-unimaginable mobility, but it is also a merciless engine of war. TV does deliver important information, but it's also a colossal waste of time. Cars provide great freedom, but they have spawned a sprawling, disconnected nation with a crushing dependence on foreign oil.

So it is with the great innovation of our time, the Internet, whose birth and early childhood have been hailed in rapturous terms. Much of this praise is on target: It is a revolutionary tool that puts the world at our fingertips, giving voice to far-flung folks who do not own a printing press or movie studio.

But it's not all peaches and cream, as Lee Siegel argues in “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob” (Spiegel & Grau, $22.95, 182 pages). While admitting the Internet's many splendors, the National Magazine Award-winning critic deploys a cold eye and sharp wit to illuminate the troubling ways that it is “reshaping our thoughts and ourselves, other people and the world around us.”

That is to say, technology is not just a one-way street. Like planes, cars and televisions, the Internet doesn't just cater to our needs, it also changes how we think and feel. It expands our capabilities but also messes with our minds and our culture.

No technology works with a blank canvas; its impact is shaped by the pre-existing habits and desires of its users. Siegel persuasively argues that the Internet has intensified trends brewing at least since the 1960s: our rampant narcissism, the blurring lines between reality and fantasy, the free market's push to turn all human experiences into products to be bought and sold, and the devaluation of expertise in a culture that conflates knowledge and opinion.

Siegel begins by noting how the Internet homogenizes human experience. In the past, shopping, writing letters, reading political commentary, watching TV and even procuring pornography were distinct acts. We had to get up and go to different places, see different people, use various parts of our brain to accomplish them. Now we can do all that and more seated before our monitors, seamlessly shifting from one activity to the next. “Everything,” he writes, “taboo and familiar, occurs on the same screen.”

Because everything looks the same, it often feels the same, they feel the same. We see pictures of our child's birthday party on the same screen as photos of Girls Gone Wild. Similarly, the line between truth, truthiness and outright falsehood blurs as authoritative reports in Scientific American or the Encyclopaedia Britannica appear in the same context as the rantings of anonymous bloggers and the often-inaccurate entries on Wikipedia.

We can still exercise judgment, skepticism and discretion. But these skills are being eroded by the paradoxical nature of Web culture. Even as it flattens life, it trumpets the loudest, most outrageous utterances, allowing “the strongest assertions to edge out the most conscientious talent.”

Siegel explores this dynamic - this techno-dumbing down – by challenging the widespread belief that the Internet is solely a force of creative freedom. At times, it is. But more often, it's a powerful engine of conformity. Cyberspace is not ruled by the artist's credo articulated by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza - “all things excellent are both difficult and rare.” Quality still counts, but not as much as popularity, “which is the sole criterion” of cyber-success. A novel or poem that few people read can still be hailed as a masterpiece. Like soda pop or packaged cookies, a blog posting or YouTube video rises or falls based on the number of customers or hits it receives.

This bottom-line mentality discourages people from developing their own ideas and identities. It prods them to find ways to please others, rather than to be themselves. This helps explain why precious little Internet content is truly illuminating. It is hard to challenge and enlighten people when your chief goal is to satisfy them in a world where “the greatest success is often the result of following conventions more diligently than anyone else.”

Brilliantly, Siegel shows how this popularity imperative is transforming our very sense of self. Social networks such as MySpace and Match.com, he argues, are making us see ourselves, and sell ourselves, like products. In trying to cast ourselves in the best light, we end up sounding like everybody else. On the Web, everyone is an attractive, successful, fun-loving nonsmoker who enjoys movies and walks on the beach.

Finally, this push toward bland conformity undercuts one of the Internet's greatest gifts. At its best, it offers tremendous access, choice and freedom. With the click of the mouse we can visit exotic worlds, hear distant voices and get a new pair of pants without fighting the traffic at the mall. But even as it enables us to indulge a wider variety of interests and tastes, it insidiously indoctrinates us into its value system. As it widens our scope, it narrows our minds.

“Against the Machine” is a polemic in the best sense. At a time when the rare Internet critic is routinely dismissed as a Luddite who fears all change, Siegel's book raises profound and disturbing questions. Above all, it reminds us that technology is not just a tool, it's also a way of being.

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