[IP] For Undisconnectables, Tomorrow May Bring Relief From Obsession
Begin forwarded message:
From: "John F. McMullen" <observer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 3, 2004 12:58:21 AM EST
To: johnmac's living room <johnmacsgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Inwood2001 <inwood2001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, CardinalFarley List
<CardinalFarley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Commonweal Mailing List
<commonweal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Dave Farber <farber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Gomes: For Undisconnectables, Tomorrow May Bring Relief From
Obsession
From the Wall Street Journal --
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109926556403660662,00.html?
mod=technology%5Fcolumns%5Ffeatured%5Flsc
For Undisconnectables, Tomorrow May Bring Relief From Obsession
by Lee Gomes
You've heard, ad nauseam, about this election year's Undecideds, those
who still can't make up their minds between two quite different
presidential candidates. But there is another large group of citizens,
spawned by the Internet, about whom you've heard virtually nothing: the
Undisconnectables. On this the last day of Decision 2004, it's time to
finally give the Undisconnectables their due.
Last year, the Internet was said to be poised to transform presidential
politics in two ways: by bringing a populist cast to fund raising, and
by giving candidates a new, direct method of reaching voters. The first
prediction came true resoundingly; the second one, much less so. As
with many other things involving technology, even the most elaborate
political Web site has devolved from being a novel competitive
advantage to a simple must-have, like bumper stickers and lawn signs.
The one aspect of the Web and the 2004 election that no one saw coming
is the extent to which so many people would become utterly obsessed
with following the race online -- to the point where they're incapable
of disconnecting from their Web browsers for fear of missing the latest
poll, the most recent blog posting, the latest headline at Yahoo News.
That has certainly described my life during the last few months. I had
assumed, though, I was in a shame-filled, tiny minority -- until I
began asking others how the election was going for them. I gradually
discovered that nearly everyone I talked to shared my dirty little
secret of Undisconnectablity.
The coup de grce came last week, when the president of a company -- a
fairly big one at that, with a looming IPO -- opened up and confessed
his own Internet election addiction. It was a breakthrough moment; we
nearly hugged.
We immediately began to dissect the methodologies different polls use
to determine who is or is not a "likely voter." If you're a fellow
Undisconnectable, you know what an issue that is.
There is no Kinsey Report estimating the Undisconnectable population in
this country. But it is a safe bet that U.S. productivity will surge on
Wednesday, when all of them delete the likes of electoral-vote.com from
their lists of browser favorites and get back to work.
(This, of course, assumes that the election won't be a repeat of 2000
and drag on for weeks. If it does, the problem will instantly get a
whole lot worse. No one, particularly Undisconnectables, wants that to
happen.)
Some might say the phenomenon of an election-paralyzed population is a
function of the importance of this particular contest, which both
Democrats and Republicans routinely say is the most important in our
lifetime.
But the Internet itself shoulders much of the blame. One of the lessons
of the Web is that if people have access to information, they will
consume it, whether they are hungry or not.
Who among us didn't spend much of the late 1990s stock bubble hitting
the "refresh" button on the Web pages that held our Web portfolios,
even on slow trading days? Is doing a Google news search every 15
minutes on "bush and kerry and poll" really all that different?
What's more, Undisconnectables can claim that they aren't just
passively observing the election, they are also helping shape it.
Another trend of the 2004 season is the extent to which the language of
fields such as literary criticism has infiltrated discussion of the
campaign. Much attention is paid to the "narrative," or storyline, of
the election. Another big word is "meme," which is a fancy way of
saying "recurring idea." (Two big memes from 2004: Kerry is a
flip-flopper; Bush refuses to acknowledge mistakes.)
In the blogosphere, which Undisconnectables prefer to the comforts of
home, you see talk all the time about how everyone should be out there
helping shape the narrative to their candidate's advantage. "This
should be the new meme" has become a battle cry.
Sometimes, it works. The Bush blogosphere played a major role in
forcing CBS to backtrack on the Bush National Guard memos. Liberal
bloggers took the lead in putting pressure on Sinclair Broadcasting to
modify its plans to show a documentary critical of John Kerry. (Blogs,
by the way, are as starkly red-blue as the rest of the country.)
Advanced Undisconnectables -- the real pros -- follow events online so
closely, and in real time, that as soon as something happens, it
becomes old news, and they go on and look for the next event, the next
trend, the next aspiring meme. This group has little use for evening
news shows, which are, after all, hours old. As for the next day's
newspapers, well, they might as well be history books for all the new
news they will contain.
It's been a great run, but -- sigh -- now it's nearly over. Tomorrow
morning, we Undisconnectables will be up bright and early, trolling for
exit polls. The afternoon and evening will be spent opening champagne
or crying in our beer.
After that, there will be the spat of post-partum depression inevitable
after an experience of this intensity. We will never live through the
likes of it again. At least not until 2008.
Send your comments to lee.gomes@xxxxxxx
Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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"When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra
"Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic"
-- Arthur C. Clarke
"You Gotta Believe" - Frank "Tug" McGraw (1944 - 2004 RIP)
John F. McMullen
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