I agree with the idea that due to the great number of possibilities of participating in the web anonymously, the communication once thought to connect people of the world, and to help them grow together, has become something impersonal.
Although it is true that technologies are now extensions of ourselves, and part of our lives thanks to the profound personalization of the design, it is also true that whenever a content is created for a majority, we are asked to accept thinking as a group and not as individuals, what does not encourage individual intelligence either. Digital creators are trying to resume the human mind in a series of codes that lack of mystery and soul.
For example, I liked the idea of the “file” that Lanier has: the notion that human expression is like separable fragments that can be organized, have versions and must be combined with compatible applications. This means that we are not longer seen as separated people, but as fragments of a global knowledge.
Then, Lanier reflects about the idea that, thanks to the greed, the entrepreneurs -leaded by Google-, have provoked a degeneration of the web, creating an environment guided by the power of business and money. They create fragments of creativity and make them available to the public as if they were not something that they offer to the masses, but as if they really meant that, when the user uses them, they become individual and original.
The same thing happens with our consideration of friendship. We consider every other user in our shared platforms as a “friend”, while we are forgetting the real meaning of it. We are getting more and more lonely in a world where everybody believes to be quite popular.
In the end, I share the perspective that emphasizing the digital crowd means deemphasizing individual humans in the design of society, what leads to a hostile and destructive online world. It is crucial to maintain our individuality in every thing we do and decision we make.
