Zing of Authenticity

Although last week marked the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, to many the tragic even feels like yesterday. And with a World Wide Web overflowing with data, information of the trauma continues to pour out from its digital home.

"If journalism is the first rough draft of history, eyewitness reports captured on mobile phones and broadcast to the world are the first reports—scratchings, written hastily on Post-its, which later become an outline that eventually inform the first draft as well as the drafts to follow," stated a TIME Magazine journalist.

What a fascinating concept.

"They are hastily scribbled and stuck in the moment, but later, when a skilled storyteller comes along, they begin to take shape into a cohesive narrative. And, particularly the case of the Marathon Bombings, they take on a life of their own as a kind of meta-narrative—we get a sense of how we respond when tragedy strikes," he continued.

However, unlike Word document or paper-and-pen canvases, these "rough drafts" take place on the Internet, never to be erased from its digital database. 365 days and a Google search later, I can still relive that tragedy—as if I was there.

According to National Geographic, Bill Braniff, executive director of the National Consumption for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism, said social media does exactly this; it places people into a digital community "instantly spreading information far beyond the affected area" at speeds comparable to a wildfire.

But many argue that this digital spread of information isn't only quicker than a wildfire but also more dangerous.

The rapidity of social media provides a "high", or "zing," as Brooke Gladstone, On The Media Host, calls it. In her interview with Alex Goldman, OTM Producer and Chief Twitterer, Gladstone explained the "zing of authenticity" journalists (both citizen and professional) experience when publishing news.

The question remains about whether the "zing" of publishing something first is worth more than the "authenticity" of publishing something credible. In other words, is it more important to be the first to disseminate questionable information or more important to be the first to disseminate credible information?

Gladstone questioned Goldman's motives as he tweeted information about the Boston Marathon bombings while hearing them from the local police scanner. She asked: "Were you tweeting the police scanner compulsively, or did you have intent?"

Perhaps a follow-up question would have been, "Were you tweeting questionably or credibly?"

Goldman continued with his answer: "I feel like my intent was just to give a sorta snapshot of the confusion that was going on on the ground. I mean, a police scanner does not create a narrative; a police scanner is just a couple of people giving bits and pieces of information."

Bingo.

Bits and pieces of information.

That's where this "zing" thing is faulty. There's a "calculated risk", as Goldman said, to tweeting information as it's heard rather than as it's corroborated.

At least one journalist at Time Magazine realizes this. He stated: "Though there is plenty to praise—the excellent work of some eyewitnesses who truly became amateur reporters, the absolute immediacy of information—there's also much to worry about: the emotion-fueled speculation, the misinformation, the vigilante journalism."

LA Times restated the same point: "In a mad rush to be the first to identify the perpetrators, anonymous posters online began openly naming people they believed had planted the bombs. Caught up in the mania, some traditional media ran with that information."

Ah, there it is again. That word "zing". Oh wait—they said mania, not "zing". How could I confuse those two?

Well, according to NPR, even The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal thinks social media users are a bit maniacal. "People...decided that they could help with the investigation by taking all the photos that had come out of the bombing, combing through them and looking for suspicious characters," Madrigal said.

NPR stated: "Even in the beginning, Madrigal compared what was going on to vigilantism."

However, according to CBS News, Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of Mashable.com, said it was more of an adrenaline for social media users to catch the bombers before the FBI, rather than helping with the investigation.

"They became investigators," Ulanoff said. "Their stated goal was to find the bombers before the F.B.I....so they weren't necessarily saying, 'Let's help find the bomber's; they were like, 'We're going to beat them to it..."

Zing.

Social media has provided an amateur platform for citizen journalists to be the first. Do we really thrive on being the first? Does this "sort of zing of authenticity" boost our ego, make us feel better about ourselves?

Perhaps not when we mistakenly accuse an innocent Brown University student as a suspect.

Then why do we do it? Why do social media users continue to use these sites as a way to say whatever, blame whatever and... just...whatever?

USA Today addressed this: "Another challenge for social media users in the wake of a tragedy: figuring out what is appropriate to share and what is not. For instance, some social media users posted graphic images of bombing victims."

ABC News also emphasized this: "Everything from photos of blood covering the ground to a six-second Vine of the actual explosion was circulated, giving people a truer image of what happened."

While some, like ABC, might argue that these images are true, others disagree. With Photoshop and other editing programs, who's to say what's true and what's not?

Yet, I can't take my eyes off those photos. I can't stop playing and replaying the video. Why? Because it gives me that "zing". I can be one of the firsts to see it. I can be one of the firsts to have this unauthentic "high"—a high that today we crave like any other drug.

ABC News stated: "According to Topsy, a Twitter analytics company, at around 4:10 p.m. (less than 90 minutes after the bombings on April 15), there were more than 300,000 mentions on Twitter of 'Boston explosions'. At around 4:30 p.m., there were more than 700,000 mentions on Twitter of the 'Boston Marathon'; the hashtag #prayforboston trended on Twitter, and Topsy reports that from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., more than 75,000 tweets mentioned 'Pray for Boston'."

What a high, right?

Gaming

While Jane McGonigal's TED Talk is inspiring (I took three full pages of notes), I found another article equally inspiring (or rather depressing) that counters her arguments. 

CNN's 'The Demise of Guys': How video games and porn are ruining a generation discusses how gaming in itself is a real-world problem. According to the article, "...young men become hooked on arousal, sacrificing their schoolwork and relationships in the pursuit of getting a tech-based buzz."

McGonigal refers to this “tech-based buzz” as a high that people of the world should be feeding off. She says gamers feel a sense of urgency, fear, concentration and deep focus while playing games—something the world needs more of to solve its problems.

When gaming, McGonigal says we become “the best version of our self”, “the most likely to help at a moment’s notice”, “the most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes…to get up after failure and try again”.

Yet, according to CNN’s article and the research therein, “the best version of our self” during gaming is essentially, the best version of our self during gaming and nothing more. We aren’t applying our gaming “high” to conquer the world, as McGonigal would like us to believe.

The CNN article continues: "The excessive use of video games and online porn in pursuit of the next thing is creating a generation of risk-averse guys [and girls] who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school and employment.”

McGonigal states that when playing a multi-player video-game, characters trust each other without even knowing each other. “Characters are willing to trust you with a world-saving mission, right away,” McGonigal enthuses. She refers to this level of trust as collaborative.

But other researchers are finding gaming to be destructive rather than collaborative.

“Stories about the degeneration are rampant: In 2005, Seungseob Lee, a South Korean man, went into cardiac arrest after playing ‘StarCraft’ for nearly 50 continuous hours,” CNN states. “Norwegian mass murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik reported during his trial that he prepared his mind and body for his marksman-focused shooting of 77 people by playing ‘World of Warcraft’ for a year and then ‘Call of Duty’ for 16 hours a day.”

McGonigal argues that time like that spent gaming is time well used.

“When we talk about how much time we’re currently investing in playing games, the only way it makes sense to even think about it is to talk about time at the magnitude of human evolution, which is an extraordinary thing,” she says. “But it’s also apt because it turns out by spending all this time playing games, we’re actually changing what we’re capable of as human beings—we’re evolving to become a more collaborative and hearty species.”

Hearty might be one way to explain it, or, maybe, heartless.

CNN states that “…video games also go wrong when the person playing them is desensitized to reality and real-life interactions with others”, relating the disconnect between virtual-worlds and reality, where people aren’t given a “level-up” every time they do something good or given another life every time they do something bad.

However, our TED Talker and CNN may have finally reached a consensus on one thing: gaming is a way to “escape real-world suffering…to get away”, McGonigal says.

And that, too, is how I view gaming. That it’s neither a bad thing nor a good thing. It’s just another world—no different than finding yourself lost in a good novel or motion picture, no different than finding yourself lost in social media or the internet, no different than losing track of time talking with a friend or spending a day at the park, carefree of any troubles.

It’s just another world. Adults still play make-believe.

Abstinence

48 Hours

As my husband and I drove through Zion National Park last month, slowly leaving behind the bustling city of St. George, I thought I'd have no trouble going 48 hours without technology at Zion Mountain Ranch—but I was wrong.

When we arrived at our cabin, we found ourselves "camping" comfortably, with a fireplace, running water and, here's the kicker, cable TV. We crawled into bed and cozied up with the gas-burning fireplace blazing in the corner and the TV beckoning our name—it was March Madness after all. Though my husband wanted to turn on the game, we shut off our phones and caught some shut-eye. 

And then we woke up and showered, drove to the restaurant down the street for breakfast and headed back to the cabin for some buffalo grazing. I whipped my Canon out of its bag and began documenting the beautiful animals and our surroundings. We went about our day, consisting of more driving around admiring the national park, hiking for beautiful pictures and grabbing treats at tourist shops to snack on throughout the day.

We settled back into our quaint cabin that night, ignored the beckoning TV and caught some shut-eye.

The next morning we woke early and met with a friend for some shooting. We put on our electronic hearing protection and listened to the muffled sound of our bullets hitting our targets. After a couple of hours, we hopped back into the truck and rolled down the windows for some fresh air. We grabbed lunch at a nearby restaurant before heading home.

"I did it," I thought. "I went 48 hours without technology."

But I was wrong. I had used technology when I warmed up with the fireplace, I had used technology when I had a hot shower in the morning, I had used technology when I drove to the restaurant, drove around the park, drove back home. I had used technology when I captured photos on my camera and when I stopped for lunch at the restaurant. I had even used technology when I replaced traditional orange ear plugs with 60 dollar electronic ones.

The only technology I really didn't use was my phone. 

And I thought I had gone 48 hours without. 

To say I met the requirements of this assignment might be a lie. But to say my eyes were open to all the technology that I take for granted is nothing shy of the truth. How naive of me to think that by shutting off my phone and avoiding the "on" button on the TV, I was going without technology. I never thought of a gas-burning fireplace as technology. I never thought of running water as technology. I never thought of a car as technology, or a DSLR or hearing protection or eating at a restaurant. 

I was so wrapped up in not using my phone, that I didn't even recognize just how much I was using technology—in all of its forms.