Column:

Dear Internet, slow down

By Lindsay Eanet

Published Sept. 18, 2009

I could use this column to launch into a long-winded discussion about "civility" and discuss Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and the Kanye West/Taylor Swift controversy, but I really don't feel like dignifying any of those people with a response.

I do, however, want to talk about Kanye West for a different reason entirely — not about what he said or did, but how quickly his actions became Internet memes, or viral catchphrases that operate like collective inside jokes. There was the Joe Wilson YouTube remix, in which West interrupts President Barack Obama with the audio footage of West's outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards. Within half an hour of finding out about Patrick Swayze's tragic death by pancreatic cancer, I'd already seen a viral meme parodying the VMAs incident, a variant on this theme: "I'm sorry you died and I'mma let you get back to your funeral in a minute, but Michael Jackson had the best death of the year. Just sayin'."

In addition to the obvious sad implications of someone's death becoming an Internet meme (the same thing happened to our dearly departed Billy Mays), it made me realize just how quickly and virally information spreads in the digital age.

We were reminded of this again later in the week when an ABC News reporter posted an off-the-record comment Obama made about the VMAs incident to his Twitter account. He might have removed it immediately after, but that's not how the Internet works. By the time he realized what had happened, it had already been re-tweeted and blogged at breakneck pace. The "delete everything" method of damage control is no longer a valid option because we're at a point now (and we've been here for a while) in which information spreads like swine flu in the residence halls.

There are a lot of questions about what this all means for us as consumers and absorbers of information. With the speed and breadth of information we are given, I'm left wondering if it's possible for us to really absorb anything we're given, whether we have the patience to wait for details before jumping to conclusions and if all headlines from now on will inevitably be reduced to Internet memes.

Sometimes, this method of swift summary, aggregation and meme-ification of the news works. The "Auto-Tuning the News" video series, for example, is pretty funny and informative, though the joke has a pretty small shelf life. But generally speaking, though we are informed faster and through more means, I think it's fair to say we, as a general public, ultimately know less about more things.

In short, I think we need to slow down a little bit. Granted, more and more news outlets are breaking stories gradually (starting with the headline and then going into more detail as time progresses), but the Interwebs have led to such a strong attention deficit that often, the most important details are left out for the sake of providing the timely (and often, the dregs).

And, as we have seen, moving too quickly for the sake of providing information, as with the reporter at ABC, can lead to inaccuracies or leakage of (ultimately irrelevant) information that was never meant to be released. There has to be a way in which this whole process can be altered so outlets can keep up with the speed of information, but balance the constant aggregation and summarization with more detail and more meticulously-planned transfer of information, so we're not left with a case of societal attention deficit disorder and treat news items which are far, far more important than Kanye West (Kanye, I'mma let you finish, but the health care crisis had the most relevant story of the month.) like Internet memes and celebrity gossip.

So take some advice a song from Mr. West's second album, Late Registration: "You'd better pump your brakes and drive slow, homie."