Nicholas Carr’s Theses in tweetform (fourth series) reads like an amusing, and also serious, indictment of the digital age. So much can be said of technology’s capacity to influence our lives —perhaps equal parts empowerment and disillusionment with a dash of the absurd.
Here are a few gems:
- In the material world, doing is knowing; in media, the opposite is often true.
- Facebook’s profitability is directly tied to the shallowness of its members: hence its strategy.
- The album cover turned out to be indispensable to popular music.
- The pursuit of followers on Twitter is an occupation of the bourgeoisie.
- Abundance of information breeds delusions of knowledge among the unwary.
- Instagram shows us what a world without art looks like.
- Personalized ads provide a running critique of artificial intelligence.
- YouTube fan videos are the living fossils of the original web.
- Tools extend us; technology confines us.