“Information systems,” he writes, “need to have information in order to run, but information underrepresents reality” (my italics). In Lanier’s view, there is no perfect computer analogue for what we call a “person.” In life, we all profess to know this, but when we get online it becomes easy to forget. In Facebook, as it is with other online social networks, life is turned into a database...
Zadie Smith's interesting review of the movie The Social Network and Jaron Lanier's You are not a gaget. For me, this is the most interesting point of Smith's reflection on the book and the movie. But, it is still a debatable point. Yes, the system needs us to put in data that it can use. But are we the sum of what the system sees? Is what we input into a system that the system can see, the sum total of what we put in? I don't really think so.
