WE’VE gained so much in the digital age. We get more entertainment choices, and finding what we’re looking for is certainly fast. Best of all, much of it is free.
But we’ve lost something as well: the fortunate discovery of something we never knew we wanted to find. In other words, the digital age is stamping out serendipity.
When we walk into other people’s houses, we peruse their bookshelves, look at their CD cases and sneak a peek at their video collections (better that than their medicine cabinets).
Really?
So a few days ago I’m fiddling around on the net. I’d been fishing for things about Scandinavia because I was looking for something to include in one of the podcasts. Came across a bit on Norway and read through it. I didn’t think it’d be useful so I sidelined it and moved on. I found something on Sweden that might work, and oh hey! Lutefisk! Maybe I can throw in lutefisk as some kind of link to something, maybe tie it to Lake Wobegon and Garrison Keillor or something. If nothing else then maybe Swedish cooking would be…
OH LOOK!
The Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show! WOW! I haven’t seen these in years! These are hilarious and, OH YES! They have the one where he makes donuts with a blunderbuss!
I then spent the next half hour watching Swedish Chef videos on YouTube.
If you’re not finding serendipitous entertainment online, then you aren’t using the internet correctly. If it weren’t for serendipitous online finds, I’d have never heard about or seen the weirdness that is The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. Or, an even better example:
I’m a huge fan of Zero Punctuation. I popped over to the Yahtzee Croshaw’s (the creator of Zero Punctuation) blog and found out about an interview he’d done. I check out the interview and he talked about something called Screenwipe with Charlie Brooker. I’d never seen the show, but according to Croshaw, it’s hilarious and it’s on YouTube. Thanks to a short comedy show about video games, I wound up becoming a fan of a BBC show all about television.
Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes. Tycho (Jerry Holkins) @ Penny Arcade
I see your point
Yes, there is serendipity, but I think the internet also contributes to a shortened attention span. Or maybe it’s sort of a broadening of horizons?
Yes and No
Perhaps the internet does contribute to a shortening of the attention span. Yet I seem to recall that the same thing was said about radio, cinema (especially when sound got added), television, video games, and computers in general. That’s why every time I hear a story like this where someone says that X Technology Leads To Y or that X Causes The Loss of Y, I’m always suspicious and skeptical because it’s been said before about so many things.
Sure, people’s attention spans probably are shorter today. But why is that bad? I don’t know about others, but my attention span for things I’m not interested in has always been short. When it comes to pointless meetings, administrivia, the media, and government; yeah, I can only put up with those for short amounts of time. But when it comes to reading, researching history and science, writing, listening to music, cooking, and other things I enjoy; my attention span is limited only by the amount of time I have before I’m forced to sleep again.
Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes. Tycho (Jerry Holkins) @ Penny Arcade
I have to disagree …
on the serendipity angle. Heck, I have found things in my Amazon recommendations that I had never heard of, would never have found on my own, and turned out to love. Then there is the whole trail-of-breadcrumbs aspect of generalized web browsing, skipping from link to link to link … so no, I disagree.
kmcorby