Zadie Smith, Facebook, Personhood, "My Generation"

Zadie Smith begins her article "Generation Why?" in the New York Review of Books with the question: "How long is a generation these days?" She goes on to express her feeling that though she's only nine years older than Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and subject of the movie "The Social Network," she does not quite feel that she's part of his generation. She's back at "Person 1.0," as she expresses it, while the Facebook-obsessed, perpetually texting people of "my generation" are a new breed: Person 2.0.

But how long is a generation? Is the concept of 'generation' really useful in expressing the difference between people, or does it flatten people in the same way categorizing people in terms of their taste in music does? In her article, Smith, an excellent writer (I highly recommend her book of essays, Changing My Mind) makes some compelling insights about the movie "The Social Network" and Facebook and the nature of "Generation Y" but I disagree with some of the points she makes, especially her claims about Facebook's role in flattening the concept of personhood among People 2.0.

First, we need to understand Smith's concept of personhood and the threat that Facebook supposedly poses to it. So Smith says she thinks of a person as "private," a "mystery" both to the world and more importantly, to herself. With Facebook we share details about ourselves. We make ourselves public. And we share not quite details, but data, a limited set of data: favorite movies, music, relationship status, etc, not your favorite "architecture, ideas, or plants." And Smith is right here. The format of Facebook profiles does express an underlying framework as to what's important about people, about yourself. It's what movies you like that matter, not what buildings you like.

Smith draws the conclusion, though, that we actually think our identities come down to our favorite movies and TV shows. If so, she argues, with Facebook being so ubiquitous, we are locked into this way of thinking about what constitutes a human being. And guess what, we didn't author this theory of identity, Mark Zuckerberg did. We are locked into software "designed by a Harvard sophomore with a Harvard sophomore’s preoccupations." We are stuck in the semi-autistic computer geek Zuckerberg's concept of personhood. But do we actually think of our Facebook profiles as representative of our personalities? Do we even try to make our "about me"s really about us? I think not.

Smith misunderstands the attitude most people have towards Facebook. Most people I know have resisted Facebook at one point or another, either deleting their profiles or avoiding setting one up long as possible or just plain not using the site very often. Others often complain about being addicted to Facebook or wasting time on the site or about the confusing privacy settings (a topic that's been widely talked about.) But the point is that Facebook, though ubiquitous, is not reflexively embraced. It's not, from an emotional standpoint, "our new beloved interface with reality." We use Facebook, we don't necessarily love it.

So why do we use it? Why has it become so popular? Well, as Zuckerberg would say, "it connects people." We do want to connect with people, connection being, you could say, the most basic form of the social impulse. We do want more, of course. We don't just want to be "Facebook friends." But in a basic way, Facebook is a tool to connect with long lost high school friends or people at college you've just met, a step towards intimacy. Its about Facebook's nature as a tool for connection where Smith is misguided. She misunderstands the role Facebook plays in our online "lives".

We publicize our likes and activities in our Facebook profiles, true enough. But do people take these details as exhaustive representations of who someone is? Of course the details can be interpreted that way, but in reality, I think profiles are just interpreted as things that get filled in. When people set up their profiles, they put in their favorite movies, books, something clever maybe. Then perhaps they update these details on occasion. When I started using Facebook, way back in 2005, I thought seriously about how I came across in my profile. I changed it often. You used to be notified when someone changed their profile. It was significant. But now, I can't remember the last time I changed my profile. I really don't care what's in my profile. I don't care what's in other people's profiles. (Perhaps there's something significant to explore in how being notified of something makes it seem important, but we'll leave that for another time.) I treat the details in a person's profile as signs of who they are, not exhaustive representations. If you like a movie that I like I figure I might like you. If you like a book that I think is terrible I think, well, I might not like you. But I understand the distinction between the likes and dislikes people post on the internet and who they really are.

In the recent profile of Zuckerberg in the New Yorker, the author tries to draw some meaning out of the items in Zuckerberg's own Facebook profile. Apparently Zuckerberg lists only one book among his favorites, Ender's Game, "a coming-of-age science-fiction saga by Orson Scott Card, which tells the story of Andrew (Ender) Wiggin, a gifted child who masters computer war games and later realizes that he’s involved in a real war." Gifted child. Can't distinguish computer game from reality. Must be a key to the mind of Zuckerberg. But then as the author reveals later in the article, when he asked Zuckerberg about the book, he said "Oh, it’s not a favorite book or anything like that. I just added it because I liked it. I don’t think there’s any real significance to the fact that it’s listed there and other books aren’t." Zuckerberg then tells him that he enjoyed reading, for instance, the Aenid much more. And then the author proceeds to draw meaning out of Zuckerberg's feelings towards that book.

Maybe Zuckerberg underplayed his feelings towards Ender's Game because he was uncomfortable being analyzed, but lets take him at least somewhat at his word. Perhaps we're so curious about who Zuckerberg is that we're ready to build any information, any information at all that we learn about him into a full identity. Facebook details become a representation of personhood only when you really want to know who someone is and have no better source of information. Our obsession with "reality" TV shows and celebrity gossip works the same way.

So does the widespread use of Facebook and Facebook profiles really show the reductive concept of personhood among people in "Generation Y" and in society in general? I don't think so. There has always been a tendency to reduce personhood, whether to nationality, or age, or sex, or interests, or generation. Its difficult to express a complete picture of a person. That's why really good fiction is so rare, and difficult to write. In real life, when we talk about people and think about people we use shorthand because we have to. We flatten people in order to talk about people. Language is reductive and so are all forms of representation.

Maybe I've been wrongly using the pronoun "we" throughout this essay, but I think "my generation" and all generations realize, though they might have difficulty expressing it in language or thought, that we are each a mystery, to ourselves and to the world. Our Facebook profiles are only superficial faces to use in a virtual world that requires superficial faces to interface, to connect. Intimacy is still out there if we want it. Who am I? I don't know. I'm not even sure I understand the question.

Intoduction

On this here blog I will be writing about interesting things happening in the world, reflecting on books I'm reading, and exploring ideas about all kinds of interesting things. My goal is just to write a bunch of interesting little (sometimes probably not so little) essays and things. Read them if you find them interesting. Ignore them if you don't. And I'll never find out how to make this blog look good, so judge me on the content of my writing, not the physical appearance of my chosen pre-made template.