On this episode of Spark: Credibility Hubs, FOMO, and Retrieval. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
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What Does The Medium Retrieve?
This year marks the centenary of visionary media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s birth. Fifty years ago he began laying out his ideas about technology and culture – ideas that illuminate today’s digital world. Which is why all this month we’re putting all Spark stories through the filter of McLuhan’s four laws of media. This week: What does the medium retrieve? We’ll explore that question by looking at how our technology is allowing for a return to our pre-industrial, pre-mass media days – the way we build things, the way we make and distribute our art, and the way we share information. (Runs 3:31)
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Credibility Hubs
McLuhan had this idea that we were retribalizing, that electronic media was bringing about a global village, allowing us to return to old ways of sharing information, stories. And no more so than in the past five years with the mainstream adoption of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. The social web has made our friends and family our main sources of information. But now, after several years of seeking the truth for ourselves, are we turning back to some kind of authority to do the sorting for us? Spark contributor Anand Giridharadas says a contrary trend is forming, one that will restore authority but still come from the crowd. (Runs 9:39)
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FOMO Is Changing Our Brains!
Fear of missing out – aka FOMO – is not a new phenomenon. But the digital age and its speedy networks have scaled the experience to new heights. A lot of us switch tasks constantly – checking tweets, status updates, and the little flashing light on our phones that say another text has come in, all because we’re worried we might miss something. It’s behavior that goes hand in hand with our connected lives, and that global village McLuhan imagined, where everyone had to be with the group at all times, lest they be apart from it. But what is all this switching -this FOMO- doing to us? Dr. Gary Small is a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and author whose research has found that digital media is actually changing our brains by rewiring our neural pathways. (Runs 9:46)
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Hackerspaces
A perfect example of McLuhan’s idea of retrieval is the hackerspace movement. Many do-it-yourself types are part of groups that share resources in order to hack or modify every day items to serve new purposes. And their numbers are growing. In the last few years hackerspaces have sprouted all over North America. Spark’s guide to the DIY world, Jon Kalish, checks out the burgeoning hackerspace scene to see how it’s serving as an incubator for new businesses. (Runs 8:30)
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From Rare to Everywhere (and back again!)
In an age of digital music downloads, when it’s cheap or free to reproduce things endlessly, scarcity is making a comeback: from online amateur recordings to hand crafted limited edition music sets. Nora speaks with media theorist Aimee Morrison about why we are returning to the idea of fan exclusivity. She also talks to Ian MacKaye of legendary punk band, Fugazi, and Jay Ferguson of Sloan about the different ways they’re wrangling abundance and scarcity in the digital age. (Runs 17:25)
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- Fugazi
- Ian MacKaye
- Fugazi’s live series (so far)
- Sloan
- Exclusive Double Cross Bundle
- Jay Ferguson
- Photos of Sloan making the Double Cross artwork
- Full uncut version of interview with Ian MacKaye
- Full uncut version of interview with Jay Ferguson
- Aimee Morrison
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I can certainly relate to FOMO. I agree with Dr. Small that technology use puts one into a perpetual state of stress by the compulsion to be on top of everything… not to be left out.
Conversely, however, I have for most of my life also enjoyed a certain sense of pleasure in JOMO, the Joy of Missing Out.
One realizes a state of true JOMO when one lives one's life fully and so completely absorbed in what one is doing and in those one associates with and in those activities and interests that grab one's attention, that the mundane, the transient and the faddish do not ever register on one's attention. There is a pleasure in not knowing who Lyndsay Lohan is or why so many people do know who she is. In 12 months, nobody will care, and practitioners of JOMO will be far ahead on the path of their actual lives, while the FOMO fools will be scrambling to find Lohan's successor.
Oh, I love that idea of JOMO. It reminds me of that concept of being in a 'flow' state…too rare for me unfortunately.
JOMO is difficult to maintain, when being pulled in every-which direction by obligations and responsibilities, that is for sure!
Norah – Really loved this segment "From rare to everywhere and back again". I recently got back into listening to music on LP's/vinyl because I wanted to connect with my 22 year old son through a medium that really resonated for him, even though the origins were actually "back in my day". The connection was terrific but I must admit that there were additional benefits. Specifically, it sparked a reconnection with something much more primal about music delivered to my ears in this way.
As I look at it now with the benefit of your piece on the importance of touch, it makes even more sense. As was discussed in your program, there is more to a music LP than just the sound. It truly is a ritual that includes the senses – touching the vinyl media, the smell of a new record from its packaging and especially the presentation of the cover art that in so many ways has been lost in translation digitally. Back in the day album covers were one of my earliest exposures to art. While my parents wouldn't necessarily see it, there was a visual power indelibly stamped in my memory from LP covers like "Abbey Road", "Dark Side of the Moon" or "In the Court of the Crimson King" to name a few. Such images truly became iconic and also lost something when they were literally compacted for CD. And if that were not enough, try looking at any of these on iTunes. You just don't get the visual impact nor the touch. I am curious and will check out Mark Paterson's "The Senses of Touch" as a result of your broadcast.
In the meantime, I also wanted to share the irony of my experience just to send this comment. My experience to find all of this was a completely virtual one and I noticed a desire to pick up the phone or print out a hard copy of the broadcast. Yes indeed, there is something powerful about touch. Try as we might, I honestly don't think our brains will allow this to become obsolete. There will continue to be an innate drive that brings us back to things like music LP's, manual typewriters and the like. There is much more to this than can be explained by nostalgia alone and I thank you for shining the light on this topic!
Best,
John
I did the vinyl thing up until the end of the 1990s and that was enough! I had so many worn out, scratched and warped records that I was so thankful when the industry went to CD. I now have a large collection of music on CD, much of it that has lasted for about 2 decades. CDs have been the best thing for my collecting.
I do not like digital download formats. I don't mind them for free, but I don't like to purchase them, because I have nothing tangible. I have the responsibility of storing them on a hard drive, and if my hardware breaks down, my investment is gone. Some are encumbered with digital rights systems, preventing me from using them in the various playback devices I own. I cannot loan them to friends or trade them in at the used record store for cash or other music. My investment is dead and gone. This is why I do not pay for digital downloads. Sure, I have an mp3 collection, but it is only free stuff, but I still continue to expand my CD collection (primarily classical music, jazz, Turkish and Arabic classical and traditional bluegrass, ie., things that have everlasting appeal, but not pop music that interests only for a few listenings).
Hi Nora- Spark fans. This is my first comment.
I've been a touring experimental "noise" musician for about 10 years and run a somewhat underground experimental label for about that long as well. In that scene there has always been a preoccupation with the handmade and limited edition. Ive released things on cassettes, VHS whatever-. This made me start to realize that "the packaging" as a potential art object was limited by the format of the music itself. I started posterdisc.com to solve that problem- now musicians an artists can release anything as an album, a t-shirt, a rock, a painting, some trash,posters etc. For a small fee we make download coupons with codes that can be printed out at home and attached or written directly on the object itself. The fan gets a unique "thing" and downloads its associated music separately. Its really cool because now people can really focus on the object and not have to compromise based on the size or shape of the medium. It also opens up alot of possibilities in terms of artist works- associating audio to certain serial codes from dollar bills, or unlocking music based on solving latitude and longitude riddles. etc. But at the heart is a desire to wed the physical analog world with the digital one. let me know if you want to talk more sometime, i think its a pretty unique and still very DIY solution. best Raphael