Turns Out Reality TV, Not the Web, Ruined the World
April 25th, 2008 | by Brad King |A new research study found that people who watch reality television are more likely to be involved with “promiscuous friending” and online identity creation.
The study, which will be presented in June, found that people who watched these programs — and participated in these social networks — were less likely to make a distinction between having an offline relationship and an online relationship.
In other words, the boundaries between the physical and the digital are falling apart.
As they’ve always been.
I find this particularly interesting in light of a conversation I had with Guy Kawasaki (in truth, it was a limited email exchange, which may actually prove the point of the study) about the changing relationship between work and life.
For those who are engaged in social media — even if just a little — there is a blurred line between what is work and what is personal. It’s not uncommon to take work calls, emails or texts while you are away from work. After 530 pm. In fact, in many places, it’s just expected that you will answer.
When I worked at Technology Review, it wasn’t uncommon for my boss to email at midnight — sometimes after — with a question about the site. Now, I’m quite sure I could have answered his question in the morning, but it was better if I answered it that night.
That’s the erosion.
So if that is happening for me, I presume others — and Kawasaki agreed — have felt.
This will obviously manifest itself with Generation Y (or Next or whatever we’re calling them. Gen X still rules.) in ways that are startling to us, such as the breakdown between real world friendship and online-based “friending” of celebrities.
Can we claim that this is any less disturbing or strange than the breakdown between personal and work?
I don’t think we can, although clearly it manifests itself differently since they are kids, without the context of life experience. (Which doesn’t imply an experience that is worse, only different and unknowable for us.)
