Jack-of-All, Master of Nothing
With so many hobbies holding us afloat, how do we keep up with what passes us through the day-to-day experiences?
Thanks be unto the Internet, for making it possible and simple for the recognition of great and aspiring artists around the world, for enabling us to finally utilise a free and copyright-free encyclopedia, for delivering media content at our fingertips within a few keywords. It remains a truly innovative and ambitious tool the the whole world can partake in, regardless of gender, ability and creed.
YouTube, Facebook, and mySpace needless to say opened a new chapter in the revolution of a maintained social community and has bridged the gap in bringing people even closer together than they realised was possible. While the members of the ‘net community have embraced the ’six degrees of seperation’ philosphy with full force and those once shy to expose their talents, have set up busking sites on the sidestreets of websites for small change of recogntion. But with the plethora of posts to each of the aforementioned sites by independent artists each attempting to stake their claim in the limitless limelight, somewhere along the lines the criteria for ‘acceptable’ and ‘creative’ gave way to an influx of verbinge and slapstick…
I shake my fist in frustration for the the door to instantised glory open for a fraction too long. Previous applicants need not apply it seems, for we have all the talent we need.
Has the incredible ease involved in creating music, making a blog, taking photos, sharing poetry, coding websites, partaking in online gaming and formulating personal profiles online like a social classified advertisement, left us inept to pursuing unique and challenging hobbies or have online avenues broken down traditional barriers and constraints, making it cheaper and simpler to reach an end-goal? Did I mention that all this while I can converse in seven different languages with the help of an online translator?
It could be that in the modern day, the plight for asserting a personal identity and a catalogue of abilities has taken such a turn that the Internet is commonplace and a tool to learn to adapt to rather than rebel against. But perhaps we are ultimately overstretching ourselves into pockets and categories of hobbies and abilites - to an extent perhaps that we have become a jack of all trades but a master of nothing.
The moment I began the thought for this post I was immediately conscious of how easy it would seem as though I am putting on airs about this particular area. I thought I might also mention how easy it is to be flamed by an outraged individual through the contact form for holding contentious views about certain sensitive topics. Let me begin by saying that my discussion(s) is/are merely for sociological interest and is/are not consciously biased to either trajectory; rather, they are often an observation of the connectedness of the universe through information technology among other issues.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the boom of interest began and ‘templates’ for simplicity became so commonplace. Putting on Chanel eyeliner won’t make you Jennifer Lopez no matter how much you believe in six degrees, but for some reason when we link to a famous blog for example, we feel a surge of connectedness and an invisible highway constructed in our favour. When somebody new adds us to mySpace, we suddenly feel the onset of a new social network encroaching upon us.
More importantly however, the ‘net has given us an infinite of potential to stretch our own abilities or to invent new ones beyond what actually exists within our capability. I never knew that I was a dormant editor of intellectual works on a collective scale (thanks to Wikipedia), an amateur thespian (regards to YouTube), a photographic assistant (greetings to Photoshop) or even a more obscure skillset such as a comprehensive editor of scanned books from image to .doc (thanks, Project Gutenberg). Heck, I even found myself synthesising a new ringtone for my mobile phone with a software tool which made it as easy as typing. At the same time as performing the aforementioned with ease, I could accept orders and create formal taxable transactions on an e-commerce website, order a pizza, read an online newspaper tabloid and convert a DVD collection into an electronic backup.
So, what are the implications for all of this? It’s difficult to say whether a transparent line really exists between ‘interests’ and ‘ambitions’, whether we can so coldly categorise ourselves between our butter-on-the-table career ladder and our non-paying but certainly more gratifying hobbies. At the end of the day, in my opinion there’s no reason why we can’t have the best of both worlds, so long as we realise where we should excel in our specialised ambition and where we should draw the line. There’s no particular reason for a farmer to profess an outlandish skill in the hobby of computer programming, unless its a professed new seachange.
I would enjoy hearing your comments on this topic - whether we’ve become outstretched and multi-talented thanks to the many tools available on the Internet to hone these skills we never bothered to prosper with, or whether it’s all in good fun and I have had the rant of making a mountain out of a molehill.
Interesting post. I analyzed the social network both for interests and for study on my degree. The power of the social networking and the dynamic link communication are yet to come at the max point. Internet changed the way of communicating between people, and make the no-distance-effect. That’s all great, but seems to be a social drawback. Many psicology studies make a point over the split of real-communication and mediated-communication. Internet and social networking is mediated communication that is good, yes, but really different from the real one due to the lack of real natural signals like touch and sights. Speaking with a person looking eyes to eyes is really different. That papers are not against the net and the new way of communications but light a sign of attention over that social process that is involving mostrly the younger generations.
New generations ( 12 to 18 people at speaking time) find easyer to communicate behind a medium ( cell phone or internet) than directly. That’s the behaviour you can notice over a student bus or student train were most of the students prefer to don’t engage a relation and once at home they will start to chat all over the world.
Nick,
I very much so agree with your points about the distancing effect in cyber social networks. Several earlier of my posts have covered the covert attitudes of individuals intending to escape the less desirable aspects of face-to-face communication, and this is no exception.
What I primarily meant to make transparent in this continuation of the aforementioned ideas, was the Internet becoming a Swiss army knife of talents to add to the individual repository and indeed, the split between the physical and the cyber realms of protocol in communication.
Thank you very much for your comments :)
I totally agree with your points; and Nick, you are exactly right in saying that the student bus/train behaviour is different in real life to over the internet. I have personally been told (I’m still in Highschool :S) by some peers that the best way to get to know people is over Instant Messengers, such as msn. The ethics of this is one topic to be debated; either IMs are decreasing teenagers’ ability to interact in the ‘real world’, or IMs enable teenagers (not exclusively) to reveal a part of themselves that would otherwise remain hidden. It is constantly challenging a lot of fundamental beliefs.
However, I do consider the internet to be an awesome tool. The information that is readily available, has, I believe, heightened the general knowledge of the ‘Y’ generation. It is both a miracle and a detriment to ‘today’s’ way of life. It has certainly depreciated tasks that were otherwise difficult and time consuming without the internet.
Oh and just another point on the social aspect of things - Facebook/mySpace/Bebo etc certainly serve as social interaction for some, and although I do not fully understand this fascination, I have observed the feeling of ‘connectedness’, as you put it, amongst peers.