Net Soup: Frank Beacham
The Loss of Serendipity
 Internet
users are now spending more time concentrating on fewer Web sites.
This means, as the novelty wears off and habits set in, the serendipity
of random Web surfing is in decline.
The recurrent pattern of logging on directly to familiar pages
is especially true of news. Though the Internet offers the most
diverse palette of news, information and opinion of all electronic
media, research by Jupiter Media Metrix shows that during the month
of July, 72 percent of Web news junkies concentrated their attention
on only three news sites: MSNBC, CNN and The New York Times.
The average Internet user in the United States, the research finds,
spent nearly 21 hours online during July, an increase of two hours
from last year. But, rather than use hyperlinks or search engines
to seek out new sites, the masses stayed with the tried-and-true
brand names they know from traditional media.
This is good news to deep-pocketed corporate media sites with
powerful brands. It's not so good for lesser-known sites that might
offer a genuine news and information alternative to the mainstream
media, but can't match their branding firepower.
Sadly, this trend subverts the very core idea that Tim Berners-Lee
conceived in 1989 when he invented the World Wide Web, the radical
Internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing.
The genius of WWW’s hyperlinks was the ability for ordinary
computer users to easily discover new places and ideas with a simple
click of a computer mouse.
CLOSETED IN THEIR OWN REFLECTION
"What I worry about when it comes to the Web is that people are
encouraged to drill down into their areas of concern to such a degree
that they get closeted in their own reflections of themselves,"
said Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg Public Policy Center
at the University of Pennsylvania, in an interview with the New
York Times. "That can militate against an open society. And surfing
was a way out of that."
The very randomness of discovery through hit-and-miss surfing
is one of the endearing strengths of the Web. Like the best of travel
– the kind where there's no preset agenda – open-minded
people make personal discoveries through accident and sagacity.
It's a modern version of serendipity, the faculty of making fortunate
discoveries by accident.
The issue of serendipity on the Internet unexpectedly evolved
into a major topic of discussion at a mid-1990s symposium at the
Media Laboratory on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Peter Sellars, a noted director of theater, opera and
film, offered insight on the subject.
"Hundreds of years ago," Sellars said, "people in search
of knowledge went on personal pilgrimages for information."
The process, he said, could take years. By not having the information
at their fingertips, there was experience attached to the search
that made the finding of the information far more meaningful. "The
actual act of finding something had value," he said. "It
was a beautiful thing because when you found something it meant
something."
Now, said Sellars, "we are getting all this information with no
experience attached to it. Where there is no pilgrimage the information
itself is debased, devalued and dehumanized. In a sense the ratio
of experience to information content is radically altered. What's
irritating about the age of information is that it creates this
yuppie denial of experience. We have everything at our fingertips,
but we don't value anything."
INSANE GRIDLOCK
The "untamed quality" of the basic Internet structure appeals
to Sellars because it allows the user to wander and discover information
through personal experience. "To just meander is one of the pleasures
of life," he noted.
To have the audience making wrong turns through the information
"is exactly the point," Sellars continued. "That's where the juice
is."
Today's electronic media reflects only a single point of view.
"A very narrow group of people are creating this insane gridlock
on information about human experience," Sellars said. "We are
aware there are many, many voices that we don't hear today at all.
The CBS Evening News represents only one voice."
Artists, Sellars said, "must break out of the official information
structure" to find new ways to express important subjects that mainstream
media refuses to address.
"You get the feeling that huge parts of human experience are going
undocumented and unrecognized," he continued. "Aristotle wrote about
the attempts to touch the totality of an experience. As human beings,
we are complex, divided and multilayered. Therefore, what satisfies
us is complex, multilayered and has all these built-in conflicts
just as we do. How do we set up (new media) structures that show
how we really feel?"
PROMISES UNFULFILLED
The World Wide Web, as conceived by Tim Berners-Lee, offers the
promise of a new media structure for a greater diversity of voices
and ideas. Why, then, are users drifting back to traditional media?
Is it because most new Web sites are simply not "complex, divided
and multilayered" enough to sustain a demanding audience? Or, is
it that without costly mass market branding, even the most creative
new works remain invisible – hidden under a cluttered sea of
commercial noise?
Or, perhaps, is it that modern audiences are not as adventurous
as they'd like to believe they are – quietly preferring the
comfort of simplified, shorthand information delivery over a more
demanding, thoughtful exchange of ideas?
These fundamental Internet questions are now on the table. So
far, however, the mass of online users has not provided clear answers.
Frank Beacham is a New York City-based writer and producer. His
Web site is www.beacham.com;
e-mail: frank@beacham.com
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