Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for "The New York Times" and a National Book Award winner for his brilliant account "The Worst Hard Time," the account of "Okies" who didn't leave the Dust Bowl when the Great Depression (the last one, not the current one) struck.
Today he has a wonderful op-ed in the digital paper called "Please Stop Sharing." I feel compelled to repeat that title in all caps. PLEASE STOP SHARING. You can read his thoughts here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/please-stop-sharing/?hp
There's a lot I like about Egan's piece, here are a few selections from it:
"...there is only one difference between the knuckleheads of yore — me, for example — who did numerous stupid things between the onset of puberty and a late adolescence lasting to nearly 30, and those Twit-iots of the 21st century.
"And that is technology. Facebook, Twitter, cell phone text messages and palm-size appliances yet to sprout from Apple’s labs allow all of us to be banal in real time."
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"People I once admired, even looked up to — smart, literate, funny folks — have gone down several notches in my estimation after they decided to reveal their every idiotic observation via Twitter."
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"I cheered the news from my colleague Jenna Wortham this week that the march of Facebook into every facet of our lives has slowed at last. Of course, with 200 million active users in the United States, Facebook has won the war. It’s all over but the arguing among corporate overseers about how to divvy up our private information for profit..."
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"The imperative of Facebook — maximum exposure of the personal “brand” — is by itself a form of poison to lasting relationships. It’s hard enough trying to stay close to say, five good friends. Why have surface relationships with a hundred of them?"
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Read the whole article.
You might even want to share it.
