Thursday, June 21, 2007

Week Three of 23 Things

Exploring Flickr is the task stretching my mind this week. I am left with many impressions --

1. so many people are willing to share their talent freely and generously, whether their photos, their software development, their creative ideas for photo use -- what an excellent community of technological scholarship!

2. the evolution of photo preservation and sharing has come a long way from the boxed stack of photos or slides in grandma's attic -- what does that mean for photo taking now? more, more, more photos that are more, more, more available

3. privacy? fame? invisibility? security?-- the tension grows increasingly taut
  • a man once called himself a name, lived on his land, knew a few people and died -- he had privacy, whether he wanted it or not
  • increasing numbers of people called themselves the names they were given, lived on less land, depended on more people, wrestled with choices, and they died too -- they valued privacy, if they thought about it -- why?
  • populations exploded with people who have been numbered as well as named, who are intricately entwined in the fabric of a complex and extremely interdependent society, who are constantly defining the boundaries of their lives through personal social choices and technologically determined choices, and they will die too -- do they want privacy anymore, immersed in a bigger and bigger world? or does privacy make them feel invisible? does publicity make them feel validated? and have we developed a whole new dynamic with our options for public anonymity??

4. finally, there are only so many hours in a day -- that hasn't changed

  • hobbies: quilting, baking, golf, gaming, watching television, photography, surfing the net -- everyone chooses, and most never consider what they haven't chosen
  • we do what we enjoy, what passes our time the best way for us, whether that's writing software to share photos; recording lives with a camera and preserving our visual record; observing others' lives through online viewing options, reading books or magazines, or maybe watching movies or tv dramas -- some of us enjoy reflection ;)
  • who has time to explore it all, master it all, keep up with it all? no one -- and that's totally okay, too, isn't it?

1 comment:

theothers23 said...

Your impression #4 about there being only 24 hours a day, and the aspect of choice, is one that resounds with me. While working through 23 Things I've found many things of personal interest, and I've found a lot of interesting new tools that I never knew existed. But if I spent more of my free time online, something else in my life would have to slide. So my first inclination is to WALK AWAY! And to focus only on the library-related things that are beneficial to my job, that I can work on during library time. But it's been awesome to get a glimpse into other people's hobbies and talents, and to realize how freely and enthusiastically people share their expertise.