THE SERENDIPITY DEBATE CONTD

~ Posted by Ian Leslie, January 23rd 2012

I'm delighted to see how many responses there have been to my piece on serendipity, here and on Twitter, since it went online. Some of you said that you shared the concerns it raises over the way the internet has developed. Others disagreed, often fervently, arguing that the internet is the greatest serendipity machine ever invented. I find myself agreeing with both sides.

My piece was rooted in the ideas of one of our most thoughtful and perceptive thinkers on technology, Ethan Zuckerman. But for an eloquent account of the opposite case, you can read another great writer on technology and culture, Steven Johnson. In his book, "Where Good Ideas Come From", Johnson argues that the web is the structural embodiment of serendipity. For the first time in history, the world's information is available to anyone, and you can wander through it in any fashion you choose. Everything connects to everything else: all you have to do is follow the links, or the conversations, and who knows where you'll end up? In a recent blog post, Johnson recounted an intellectual journey of his that took the form of just such a peregrination. He concluded, "People who think the Web is killing off serendipity are not using it correctly".

I mostly agree with this. But I think the rub is in that word "correctly". You can use the internet as a serendipity machine, but the way that it has developed—the awesome efficiency of Google search, the increasingly sophisticated filters through which we access news, culture and information—is making it easier and easier not to.

The inherent limits of older formats like newspapers or bookstores are a feature as well as a bug. They make things a bit difficult for us, and because of that they often push us towards unsought-for discoveries.The modern internet makes each of us like a rich man in his mansion who has the finest food flown in from every corner of the world and whose favourite singers and artists come and perform for him in his bedroom at a moment's notice. He has a nagging feeling that he ought to go outside and experience the city and its manifold surprises first-hand. Nothing is stopping him from doing so. But it feels like such an effort.

Ian Leslie works in advertising, is the author of "Born Liars" and tweets as @mrianleslie