Comments on: Gossip, Privacy, and the Internet http://www.erelevant.net/2008/12/16/gossip-privacy-and-the-internet/ A blog about electronic marketing, culture, and life on the digital frontier. Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:47:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Dilantha http://www.erelevant.net/2008/12/16/gossip-privacy-and-the-internet/comment-page-1/#comment-72665 Dilantha Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:27:55 +0000 http://www.erelevant.net/2008/12/16/gossip-privacy-and-the-internet/#comment-72665 I certainly agree with the author's comments - 'People rarely use gossip as a way to delve into the psychological depths of others, but rather consume it like a form of greasy fast food'. There are two parts to this. The first is that most people don't have the capacity and the memory to remember information about an individual from a prolonged period of time and very often rush into judgments (pseudo-reputations) from the most recent or contemporary piece of information. The second is that a majority of individuals do not empathize with the subject of gossip nor do they analyze the rationale (or lack of it) of the information presented to them. So it really is Mcgossip, fast and cheap, providing temporary bliss but forming large but temporal ‘gossip’ deposits in brain adipose tissue, eroding the conscience and presenting continuous 'strokes' of apathy, discrimination, vilification and many other derogatory human deeds. Another key part to the story is that most people travelling in the digital information superhighway or more precisely the digital gossip superhighway, ignore intentionally or unintentionally, the reality that many people are uncomfortable at personal information being shared far and wide. Yes, not everyone wants to enter the big brother house or facebook and some of us like keeping diaries and writing letters. Do you recall how Winston Smith reacted to ‘Big Brother is watching you’ in 1984 or how Truman ran away from the artificial and fallacious existence in the Truman show ?.........It is definitely a quintessential human need (and a want) to be able to have a constant level of privacy to thrive in human relationships that they are in and to maintain a healthy living, without having to look over their shoulders or to respond to absurd assumptions and beliefs that are planted in the human psyche by behavior or lifestyles which are perceived as ‘outside the box’ for the observer but are quite normal, spontaneous and honest for the individual itself. Another quite flabbergasting and derogatory human element that is widespread in the gossip superhighway is the people’s inclination to believe and spread clear ‘negative’ information, with sublime effectiveness. Positive information very rarely takes wings and even if they do, it raises many a doubt since many people nowadays are wired to think that every individual has vices and that continuous active attempts to do good (not searching for perfection here) must be compensatory actions for something hidden and sinister, in that individual. It is positive lines of thinking that must be propagated through the information superhighway but at the same time, one should remember that even positive gossip is still gossip - & when propagated without control, is still an invasion of a person’s privacy and can compromise a person’s freedoms. This is why freedoms that come with anonymity can be eroded by the gossip superhighway – celebrities are a good example of this. One more point I want to touch on is that participants of the digital gossip superhighway do not take any accountability to their actions since there are very few laws to the diffusion of information. In this climate, blog writers and those that have social networking accounts should take more responsibility to censor the information they put in blogs and notice boards since the same information can lead to a domino effect of distress to individuals and their loved ones. I wonder whether increased incidences of heightened levels of social anxiety (the 3rd most prevalent psychological disorder in the world) can be correlated with the heightened use of the digital information superhighway to share information/gossip, which results in increased association of ‘negative judgements’ or ‘pseudo-reputations’, which is the psychological basis for social anxiety/social phobia. I would love to see some rational studies on that possible correlation – digital info superhighway and social anxiety. I certainly agree with the author’s comments – ‘People rarely use gossip as a way to delve into the psychological depths of others, but rather consume it like a form of greasy fast food’. There are two parts to this. The first is that most people don’t have the capacity and the memory to remember information about an individual from a prolonged period of time and very often rush into judgments (pseudo-reputations) from the most recent or contemporary piece of information. The second is that a majority of individuals do not empathize with the subject of gossip nor do they analyze the rationale (or lack of it) of the information presented to them. So it really is Mcgossip, fast and cheap, providing temporary bliss but forming large but temporal ‘gossip’ deposits in brain adipose tissue, eroding the conscience and presenting continuous ‘strokes’ of apathy, discrimination, vilification and many other derogatory human deeds.

Another key part to the story is that most people travelling in the digital information superhighway or more precisely the digital gossip superhighway, ignore intentionally or unintentionally, the reality that many people are uncomfortable at personal information being shared far and wide. Yes, not everyone wants to enter the big brother house or facebook and some of us like keeping diaries and writing letters. Do you recall how Winston Smith reacted to ‘Big Brother is watching you’ in 1984 or how Truman ran away from the artificial and fallacious existence in the Truman show ?………It is definitely a quintessential human need (and a want) to be able to have a constant level of privacy to thrive in human relationships that they are in and to maintain a healthy living, without having to look over their shoulders or to respond to absurd assumptions and beliefs that are planted in the human psyche by behavior or lifestyles which are perceived as ‘outside the box’ for the observer but are quite normal, spontaneous and honest for the individual itself.

Another quite flabbergasting and derogatory human element that is widespread in the gossip superhighway is the people’s inclination to believe and spread clear ‘negative’ information, with sublime effectiveness. Positive information very rarely takes wings and even if they do, it raises many a doubt since many people nowadays are wired to think that every individual has vices and that continuous active attempts to do good (not searching for perfection here) must be compensatory actions for something hidden and sinister, in that individual. It is positive lines of thinking that must be propagated through the information superhighway but at the same time, one should remember that even positive gossip is still gossip – & when propagated without control, is still an invasion of a person’s privacy and can compromise a person’s freedoms. This is why freedoms that come with anonymity can be eroded by the gossip superhighway – celebrities are a good example of this.

One more point I want to touch on is that participants of the digital gossip superhighway do not take any accountability to their actions since there are very few laws to the diffusion of information. In this climate, blog writers and those that have social networking accounts should take more responsibility to censor the information they put in blogs and notice boards since the same information can lead to a domino effect of distress to individuals and their loved ones. I wonder whether increased incidences of heightened levels of social anxiety (the 3rd most prevalent psychological disorder in the world) can be correlated with the heightened use of the digital information superhighway to share information/gossip, which results in increased association of ‘negative judgements’ or ‘pseudo-reputations’, which is the psychological basis for social anxiety/social phobia. I would love to see some rational studies on that possible correlation – digital info superhighway and social anxiety.

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