We're Not Alone

Check out these videos of a local politician hosting a debate on healthcare reform in Tampa. What's fascinating is that every fifth person is making a video of the fracas.

We're all the media now.

From Slate:

There is something vaguely embarrassing—even narcissistic—about our new era of mass photography. Because we're always carrying cameras, we're moved to document every moment of our lives—sometimes to the exclusion of actually experiencing that moment. Take a look at this picture of Barack and Michelle Obama at one of the inaugural balls. Everyone in the audience has a hand up with a cell phone pointed at the stage, but nobody is actually looking at what's going on. The scene is puzzling: If the guy next to you is taking a picture—one that you can be reasonably sure will end up on a photo-sharing site somewhere—why do you need one, too? But we do this often these days. Win Butler, the lead singer of the band Arcade Fire, once told Terry Gross that he and his band mates have stopped going out into the crowd to perform because nobody pays attention to them—everyone's got their cell phones and cameras in front of their faces.

These people are not there for the experience, or for learning, or for the debate. They're there to show they were there. The proof of being present is currency.

Where is this headed? What does this mean for us?