I’ve also noticed the uncomfortable “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” phenomena in which Nicholas Carr explains how the web’s immediate access culture is causing many of us to loose our deep reading skills. I believe that simplicity can be magnificent, and that “as simple as possible” isn’t synonymous with “as short as possible”.

That quote above carries the gist of everything I’ll say below about why communication should be concise. It gets right to my point and so if you feel sufficiently informed just by reading that short conclusion then by all means feel free to scan, skim or skip down the page - but if you’ve read this far I’d like to give a few reasons to explain this conclusion.

After all…

Twitter Acceptance Speech
When Twitter won the SXSW Web Awards in 2007, founder Jack Ev gave the acceptance speech, “We’d like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!” Well, that’s pretty clever of those guys. And so, what if all acceptance speeches were limited to only 140 words?

Well, you might think “Great, we won’t have to sit through another one of those excruciatingly long Oscar speeches like when Cuba wouldn’t get off the damn stage!“. If we demand that the winners got directly to the point then it would trim an hour off of Oscar night! Well, if getting to the end was the purpose of watching, then why watch the show at all and not just read about the winners the next day? It’s the same reason that some people can watch a recorded baseball game from earlier in the day instead of just asking “who won the game?” It’s because we’re interested in the story, and not just the conclusion.

Music and Life
British philosopher Alan Watts illustrates the art of life through his composition Music and Life:

If that were true then…

By communicating only the main point we miss the eloquence and artfulness in music, language and of life. We know how the story ends, but miss the story.

Of coures this is true for literature as well. Could we really retell Hamlet in 140 characters?

We’re Here To Fart Around

In Kurt Vonnegut’s collection of short stories A Man Without A Country he decries our lust for technologies that automate our daily lives.

Vonnegut illustrates the joy he finds in the seemingly banal task of visiting the post office. He admits that he could very easily email the essay to his editor in New York, but that he prefers to fasten his printed pages together with this “thing made out of steel, called a paper clip” and walk them to the post office himself. Over a few pages of clear writing he takes us through his “dance” where he seals his envelope, walks a few blocks through New York City, chats with strangers, encounters a beautiful woman with whom he often crosses paths at the post office, and finally he feeds his letter to “the giant blue bullfrog.” Simply to be here on this planet and get to the point isn’t always the point - and it is far less sexy than dancing our way to the post office.

Short As Art

Short writing is an artform in it’s own regard: most notably the Japanese haiku, but now we’ve seen the rise of the 4 Word Film Review, 6 Word Memoirs and 12 Word Novel.  But we shouldn’t look at short messages as a replacement for all the world’s text. As Postman has pointed out…

But simple writing, as well as short writing, has a truckload of good uses (that I won’t go into here) and when used properly should transgress the art of writing - not reform it. Through over-simplification we not only become stupid, but we become dull.

Myron Krueger recognized the “sense of being together” that can be achieved through a phone conversation, but lamented that neither sight nor touch are possible through the telephone.

In 1975 he developed the VIDEOPLACE experiment that allowed two people in separate locations the ability to communicate with each other using graphical shadow representations of their bodies that were being projected onto large screens in each location. With VIDEOPLACE he noticed the level of intimacy two humans can exchange just by interacting with a live image of another’s body: “What happens to his image happens to him. In fact,when one person’s image overlaps another’s, there is a psychological sensation akin to touch.”

Over the past decade, distant lovers have been offered an array of new ways to connect: email, SMS, live video chat and even through ambient intimacy (the idea of staying attuned to someone else’s life through frequent status updating). Yet, among all these new communication tools there isn’t a popular system that can transmits touch.

Distance Lab is a creative research institute that has been trying “to overcome the disadvantages of distance in learning, health care, relationships, culture and other domains.” Since 2004 they have been working on Mutsugoto, a communication device much like that of Krueger’s VIDEOPLACE, that allows people in different locations to communicate through “the language of touch”. Mutsugoto attempts to create a more intimate bond by allowing a couple to draw on each other’s bodies while lying in separate beds. Distance Labs explains,

“A computer vision system tracks the movement of the ring and projects virtual pen strokes on your body. At the same time these pen strokes are transmitted to and projected on the body of your remote partner. If you follow your partner’s movements and your strokes cross, the lines will react with each other and reflect your synchrony. “

The feeling of intimacy that a romantic couple longs to communicate is often absorbed and lost in the medium of the internet. The creative team at Distance Lab blame the “impersonal” communication systems we rely on:

“E-mail, for example, is often read and written on the same computer and at the same desk that one uses for any other kind of communication. Phone calls and SMS messages are sent and received between partners on the same devices used for work and business.”

I believe that further erosion of intimacy comes from the ambiguity of online communication. Nicolas Negroponte in Soft Architecture Machines emphasizes that the intimacy of dialogue can be in some sense “measured by the ability of each person to recognize the intentions of the other.” Even in healthy relationships, the ability to correctly infer meaning through an instant message can at times be dubious. (Often leading us to use emoticons as digital representations of our feelings that emphasizes or clarify what we actually mean.)

By extending the sense of touch into digital communications we transcend the limitations of our current devices and realize the truth behind Krueger’s original vision: “the reponse is the medium”.

A few weeks ago I created a Facebook pseudonym in order to follow the News Feed of the real “Chris Castiglione”.  Too often I hear stories from friends who hadn’t realized that by default Facebook broadcasts almost every update anyone makes to an account. Most notably, when friends receive relationship status messages like: “Chris is no longer single” (just because you updated your account settings) or maybe you try to call out sick from work, but then your boss finds you partying in a fairy costume. I wanted to know what information Facebook was displaying to my friends, so I’ve been using a test account to see how well the privacy settings on Facebook actually work.

Recently, I uploaded a library of old photos into my Facebook account.  As I uploaded each album, I “deleted” it from the wall feed on my profile page assuming that it would also remove it from my friends’ News Feed.  I think this is how many users think the News Feed works, but regardless of removing the “story”, my friends were inundated with over 10 notifications about my various photo albums! (And the same goes for deleting events, videos, group joining or any “story” transmitted via the News Feed).

Similar issues have been brought up regarding the “hide story” feature that existed in “Old Facebook“.  The current “New Facebook” that launched in September has a new design, a new enhanced interface, and clearly new ideas for how to mislead users.

It has only been two years since Facebook implemented the News Feed, and a lot has changed on the internet regarding how we view our own privacy.  Early issues concerning the Facebook News Feed were noted back in 2006 by Danah Boyd in her article “Privacy Trainwreck” where she was concerned with the amount of information we give out to friends on the internet. She notes the new confusion and the “icky” feeling that comes from this new sense of exposure, or as others see it invasion.

But like I said a lot has happened in two years, we’ve become more comfortable sharing our personal lives, and most days I’m Twittering, FriendFeed-ing and Pownce-ing my life to strangers. So… why am I so shocked, and upset about Facebook sharing my “stories”? Because it feels like an icky invasion of privacy. Now when I use Facebook I feel like I’m being watched by someone else who is the same room and recording all my actions.  I’m much more hesitant to click or update my settings nervous that Facebook could be announcing it to everyone without my knowledge.

The major problem with the Facebook News Feed is that most people have little knowledge on how it works.  Boyd has refers to this as “Facebook’s ‘opt-out’ precedent”.  Citing that Facebook continuously imposes new defaults unbeknown to the user with the defense that users can “opt-out”.  Boyd goes on, “Given what  I’ve learned from interviewing teens and college students over the years, they have *no* idea that these changes are taking place (until an incident occurs).”

I think the bottom line is that Facebook - as the industry leader - needs to be more transparent with what is being done with our data!  If I “delete” one of my stories, then (of course) intuitively it should “delete” everywhere.

There are a few Facebook groups that have been raising awareness: Students against Facebook News Feed and Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy! But perhaps if you really want to be safe then the old adage about abstinence is truly the safest.  Of course we could stop using Facebook all together! Maybe that is extreme? So here is how you can completely opt-out broadcasting a News Feed:

How to Opt-Out of Facebook’s News Feed

1. Go to “settings -> privacy settings” at the top of your account.
2. Choose “News Feed and Wall”
3. Opt-out of all these boxes on the left. Save. Then click on “Edit Application” there on the right.

4. Once you come to the application screen you’ll need to click “Edit” and select “Never publish any stories….” for each application.