civilized ku # 373-75 ~ devolving into mindless slugs
Friday, February 5, 2010 at 09:36AM 
NY's Grand Canyon • click to embiggenAn item of note in yesterday's newspaper caught my attention. The headline read - Youth lose interest in blogs. That was immediately followed by - Could it be that blogs have become online fodder for - gasp! - more mature audiences?
The article went on to state that young people - roughly ages 12-29 - are losing interest in long-form blogging and are turning their attention - such as it is - to communication forms that are increasingly brief (and mobile). One 18 year old student, who uses Facebook and Twitter, states that "people these days don't find reading that fun".
The notion that callow and feckless youth, or the nation as a whole for that matter, has been steadily losing interest in reading is not exactly a new idea. However, much like climate change, the pace of that change has been greatly exacerbated / accelerated by man and his inventions.
All of that said, this "brevity" disorder doesn't bode well for the future of picture making / viewing, the notion of reading a photograph:
I feel that photography is becoming like T.V. Many people just want a graphic, easy image. My teacher said that a photo must communicate in less than 5 seconds, the amount of time people look at photos. However, this practice often leaves the "quiet pictures"(according to William Albert Allard) and "the second lookers" (according to Dorothea Lange) out in the cold. To me, "quiet pictures" are like crossword puzzles. But some people do not like crossword puzzles because they it forces them to think. - James Lalropui Keivom
A surprising number of "serious" picture makers - in fact I would posit the majority thereof - are already committed to making, for themselves and preferring in the pictures made by others, pictures that are purely visual in their intent and appeal - photography-lite, so to speak. Pictures that are easily consumed, digested and forgotten.
CAVEAT: much photography-lite is made with the intent of preserving personal memories / experiences. Those pictures, while they might be easily digested, will not easily be forgotten by those who made them and, in fact, are often destined to become the loci and, in fact, the actual foci of many precious memories.
Now, I am not suggesting that there was ever a golden era of reading a photograph. Far from it. In fact and in deed, reading a photograph, a photograph that is/was worth reading, has always been a rather elite (some might say, "effete") activity. It has been ever thus that...
There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman*. - Patrick Kavanagh
But, that said, isn't the arc of human development and evolution been such that the "higher" forms of life are the ones that survive and thrive? Shouldn't we be fostering and encouraging the idea of in-depth analysis / consideration of things (you know, things like life, art, politics, etc.) rather than cursory, faint, and "brief" dabbling - mainly for pleasure and a quick fix - as an MO for modern living?
*I don't know why Patrick Kavanagh chose policeman as an example of the shallow / surface understanding of Art. I would have used the nomenclature, "average smuck" (no matter how "educated"), or words to that effect.
Reader Comments (6)
there is no "i" in locus
there is no "i" in focus
there is no "i" in team
Maybe that is why I am such a lousy photographer and don't understand art, I was in law enforcement for 26 years!!!
One little correction on evolution. Nope, evolution doesn't favour the "higher" forms. Evolution favours whatever works best at getting itself replicated (Which are there more of in New York: people or bedbugs?). Which, at the moment, leads to dire predictions regarding photographs worth reading.
"Which, at the moment, leads to dire predictions regarding photographs worth reading."
I think there is a steady population of images worth reading but that the population of those capable of reading them is dwindling.
There is a 'me' in team (go figure) lol
I believe my local paper (I hate when I can't remember where I saw something) just ran an article noting that teens have NOT adopted TWITTER, which would be the ultimate short prose vehicle, no? Apparently Facebook was more their style: allowing socializing/communicating with their peers without the all out public exposure of TWITTER.
Maybe the whole analysis needs a grain or two of salt added.