For or against life-streaming?

Today we had a long and revealing conversation on life-streaming. And ofcourse, we spoke about the usual suspects : twitter, tumblr, friendfeed, friendconnect, twine, socialthing, loopt and a few others (I’m tired of typing in the links)
My job at work is to debate the value of these services from the commercial and business perspective but I come back home and ponder over the cultural, human perspective. My thoughts are a slightly disorganized right now but revolve around the same issues I raise every time when I talk about social media and cultures: representation of identities and self, oversharing vs. sharing and the implications of this on our social lives.

As early adapters, over time, we quickly become dismissive of iterative innovations in a saturated space. We are like a herd of sheep (unfortunately so)- we move to greener pastures in no time. But it is exciting to be on the forefront of this technological change that will eventually have deep cultural ramifications.

I dabble in life-streaming and to a certain extent, anyone’s who is on facebook does. If you were to take a quick glance at my facebook profile right now and try to connect the dots – you would be privy to intimate details of my life. In my insular universe, I am broadcasting those details to my audience in a secure environment, because that is the audience I have chosen for myself. But some others – chose more substantial chunks of audience, like the public.

I am personally wary of life-streaming. It maybe because I went through this life-streaming phase when I was much younger. Granted, it was only through words but I have tasted the forbidden fruit and served the voyeur inside us. It was addictive, but as I grew older, I realized it lacked substance. It was easier to life-stream under the cloak of anonymity, but I couldn’t become someone who needed real-life material just so it could be blogged/ diary-ed about.

What I fear will happen with this extreme life streaming is that it may steal us that delightful little moment of surprise and that feeling of ‘unveiling a mystery’ that we experience as we get to know someone or meet someone. I may be old school, but isn’t there some joy in meeting a friend or an acquaintance and learning something new about them in person ?

It’s just me though. I am not a digital zealot. You will never hear me say that the web is going to take over the world (it may in the future and I will stand corrected then) But I do tend to be more cynical than gung-ho.

I look at life-streaming as an over-sharing mechanism. I feel like we are moving to an age where we are wayyy too interested in everyone else’s lives. I know I am guilty of that.

argh! these late night ramblings…..!