FRIEZE ART FAIR NEW YORK 2012
MILAN 2012: SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE
MILAN 2012: SATELLITE EXHIBITIONS
MILAN 2012: BRERA DESIGN DISTRICTIn her annual Christmas Message, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands warned of the dangers of too much virtual friend making. She encouraged people to put down their phones and laptops and re-establish physical connections. "We tend to look the other way and close our eyes and ears to what's going on around us. Nowadays even our neighbors are strangers," said the Queen. Real, not virtual friendships are needed to create a feeling of solidarity and to express compassion.
Image Courtesy of rnw.nl: The Queen in Her Golden Carriage
All of this from a culture that seems to be one of the most socially connected on earth. More than half of the country's population, over 9 MM people, have a profile on popular social network, Hyves.nl. The Dutch are the most prolific bloggers in Europe, with 15% of internet users taking part in this activity. Habbo Hotel, a Dutch-created social network for kids, is taken so seriously that cops have attempted to arrest thieving teenagers for stealing virtual furniture.
While Dutch-based commentary on the Queen's message was negative (referring to her as a Luddite, suggesting that she lives in a Golden Cage, and other un-translatable name-calling) a Rotterdam-based media lab had already turned her pronouncement into an app. Moddr launched the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine last year (via TechCrunch). Just give the app your social network names and passwords, and it will purge your presence on Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites. In late breaking news via the company's website, Facebook just banned the service, but that may not stop an emerging trend of rampant virtual anti-social behavior. All of this designed by the Dutch to make you wonder - is all of this social networking a force for good, or are we hiding behind our screens?
Comments
Social networking is a tool, like any other. Good and Ill only come into play when they're wielded by people. I know two people who for whom social networking have been literally life savers. In once case a disabled woman living in a rural area is able to connect and feel involved in the lives of her friends and family all over the world. In another I saw a seriously depressed introvert come out of her shell and become healthier, happier, and really involved in her physical world largely because of social networks.
But then again I'm writing this from a coffee shop full of people. All of whom are ignoring each other, headphones in and Facebook on their laptops (and in one extreme case a guy is actively having a video conference.) What percentage of the people here have said "It's so hard to meet people"? Given that it's the refrain of many large cities, I'd guess quite a few. Taking out the headphones, closing the netbook and meeting our neighbors would indeed help us make connections.
the biggest social networking site in holland is actually Hyves.. nog not hyvves.
Not only you guyes figured this out. A sort of glossy kinda program on RTL 4 (http://www.rtl.nl/components/actueel/rtlboulevard/miMedia/197311/197314.public.29728062.RTL_Boulevard_s12_a3.xml somewhere on the second half..) made a little raportage about the queens neighbours. Nobody, except for one had made any contact with her in all the years they were living there. The only thing they got was one of the most protected neighbourhoods and some sound of drunk people when the royal family has his parties.
Thanks Sil, I corrected by Hyves typo.
And Steve: I'm trying to remember coffee shops (the non Dutch kind) before Twitter and Facebook. Do you think spontaneous conversations were much more likely before we were staring at our screens?