Benefits of constant media use far and few between

BY ERIN K. O'NEILL

We live in a media age. The young folks are submerged in a complex media landscape that involves being constantly connected to the Internet. Americans aged 8 to 18 years old spend more than 7 1/2 hours a day in front of a screen, be it television, computer, iPod or smart phone.

Ever watched TV and surfed the web at the same time?  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation study, since more than one medium is being used at a time, a person can actually pack in close to 11 hours of media and Internet time per day.

The Millennial Generation, or those among us who are somewhere between adolescence and late twenty-something, modus operandi is to be hyper-connected all the time. If I am in front of a computer I am also logged into Facebook, Twitter and  both of my e-mail accounts (at least). I often boot up my computer as soon as I wake in the morning, and it stays on and open until I go to sleep at night — closing only when I need to relocate to another class or Internet connection.

I have been wondering lately, however, if this normalization of absurd amounts of screen time is all that good. Sure, there are benefits to online attachments. I can find academic articles in moments for classes, and it saves paper to use electronic textbooks and consume news media online. I also talk to my sister a lot more often than I did before we were both on Facebook. But in all honesty, I am not doing any of these laudable things in 95 percent of my time connected to the web.

For example: have you seen Go Fug Yourself? Two chicks in LA make very snarky fun of terrible celebrity fashion. Could there be a more sublime time waster? Or, when I’m not spending time reading Texts From Last Night, where unfortunate text messages are revealed, I am perusing Overheard in the Newsroom, where journalists' unfortunate conversations are posted. I have more than one list of bookmarks in my net browser, organized by category, where more gems of worthless time suck can be found.

Maybe I just need some new blogs to destroy my days with, but this endless Internet routine is just plain boring. Nothing really exciting happens on the Internet — my friends make meaningless observations on Twitter, I get slews of emails from MU administration, and I obsessively read the New York Times (and not usually the really newsy part).

There is a social pressure not only to be constantly connected but also to be constantly seeking stimulation. There is no just having a coffee, you must be online and having a coffee, or texting and having a coffee. It is infinitely frustrating to want to sit and read a book but feel the necessity to check in online every hour. Nothing is really happening, no one said anything that can’t wait until the book is read, but it is imperative to be present online.

The Internet age has many advantages. An entire generation of Americans is dependent on portable communications devices to stave off the smallest amounts of ennui. The philosophical standard for existence is no longer “cogito, ergo sum” (not that this standard was ever the final word on the proof of existence). We now subscribe to: I am online, therefore I am.

Erin K. O'Neill is a former assistant director of photography and page designer for the Missourian. She is also a master's degree candidate at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Published in the Columbia Missourian on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.

Tehran Spring

BY ERIN K. O'NEILL

It is a truth universally acknowledged that tyrants who allow any small freedoms to their oppressed masses would eventually be in want of an army of tanks.

On August 21, 1968, such an army of tanks from Warsaw Pact countries crossed into Czechoslovakia to clamp down on a burgeoning democratic movement now known as the Prague Spring.  The thawing of USSR-mandated oppressions meant the freedom of speech, the freedom to move across borders, the freedom to engage in open debate and an economy focused on the needs of consumers instead of the government, led by Alexander Dubček, head of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

But, Leonid Brezhnev (then leader of the USSR) knew that if you give oppressed people a hint of freedom, they’d take the lot if not violently run down. Under the guise of killing off bourgeois tendencies in Czechoslovakia under Dubček and under a policy eventually called the Brezhnev Doctrine, 200,000 troops and 2,100 tanks crossed the Czech border and dozens of people were killed in the invasion. Dubček was arrested, taken to Moscow and forced to take it all back.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must have been taking notes, for Iran has been repeating some history. In certifying the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad almost four weeks ago, Khamenei galvanized discontent from his oppressed masses. If you give a people elections, they generally expect those election results to be carried out.

The Tehran Spring is the new Prague Spring: In this morality play, Khamenei is Brezhnev, an all-supreme power with a vested interest in maintaining the tyrannical status quo. Meanwhile, opposition party presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi is Dubček, a leader who promises greater freedom and reform.

(And no, it’s not a perfect analogy, but just let go of the minor details. The parallels hold true even though Khamenei is the domestic supreme ruler of Iran and not the ruler of a multi-republic superpower like Brezhnev was. And they hold true even though Moussavi has not been elected to office and delivered on promises of greater freedom like Dubček had in 1968.)

The Iranian government has been shutting down contact with the West, expelling journalists and trying to keep protesters off Twitter.  Meanwhile, the government has acted in the streets, detaining 302 Iranians to date, subsequently releasing 78, and the confirmed death toll stands at 35 according to a running total kept by The Guardian.

And while there had been a lull in protesting, Iranians took to the streets of Tehran on July 10 yet again.  It takes more than Basij militia with batons, tear gas and the threat of being crushed by the government to stop the protests. If only there were tanks.

If the drama in Tehran plays out like Czechoslovakia in 1968, the protesters will be overwhelmed by military might. Moussavi will concede the election to Ahmadinejad, and the accusations of election fraud will go uninvestigated. And even worse, Iran will backslide into an even more oppressive era with more truncated freedoms.

In revolutions, it seems that the determining factor is the use of tanks against the pro-democracy folks. People are willing to risk tear gas, batons and arrest, but not being trampled by a tracked-and-armored battling vehicle. But, evidence points to the Tehran protesters having staying power and defying the historical expectation of defeat set by the Prague Spring.

Erin K. O'Neill is an assistant director of photography for the Missourian and a graduate student at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Published in the Columbia Missourian on Wednesday, July 15, 2009.

Tweeting in Tehran

BY ERIN K. O'NEILL

I admit it. I tweet.

Which is to say, I am a member of the online social network Twitter, and I post “tweets” of 140 characters or less which are then read by all 39 of my “followers.” I’m sure all 39 of those people really care that my air conditioning unit is making alarming noises, or that I sunburned my scalp reading in the park. I joke that a Twitter habit validates one’s existence, but the underlying need is to constantly proclaim, “Hello, I’m here too!”

So, how did all this pointless drivel become so important that the US Department of State requested that Twitter delay critical network maintenance so that the flow of information in Tehran would remain uninterrupted?

The tweets say:

• Twitter revolution in a nutshell: Anne Frank's diary. Live. Multiplied by millions
• Set your location to Tehran/time zone to GMT +3.30. Iranian security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches
• The basijis attacked a couple in Shiraz/ Maali abad Blv.in their house and stabbed them badly.
• Good Morning Tehran. Mousavi says people should continue demo against "fraud and lies"
• Confirmed: Reports from Evin prison describe conditions as horrendous. People being tortured. Phone lines to prison are cut off.
• Please Do Not Respond/Follow New Twitters. Iran Secret Police Is Cracking Down.
• Road blocks controlling movement of people from North to South Tehran to stop ppl joining Sea of Green #Iranelection
• Strike, do not go to work, office, shop, bazaar, drive or school
• This is not your average day in the Twittersphere.

Advice, scoops, rumors, links, information and misinformation: it all flows through hashtag tracking. #IranElection, #Neda and #Tehran have all been “trending,” or amongst the most used phrases on Twitter. Twitter members of all nationalities are turning their icon photos green, to show solidarity with the Iranian protesters.

There is something thrilling to be sorting through the raw information, the feed of history in real time. But, there is as much real information as there is mis-information.

Even the news networks are in on it. In some cases, the story is not the protests in Iran but the protesters' method of communication with the world. Even though anchors on CNN constantly say that all of this information is unverifiable and unconfirmed, they sell the information like it’s true eyewitness accounts. Which some of it may truly be. But there is doubt. On June 13, one day after the contested elections, there were reports of fake Twitter accountstrapping genuine protesters and sending out false information to the West.

When the Iranian Culture Ministry cut off journalist’s access to the streets of Tehran on June 16, they forced the flow of information underground. So, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr and other social networking, video and photo sharing websites have become the eyes of the revolution. They bear witness when others cannot.

Twitter has an advantage for protesters because it is more of an online tool than a fully structured and comprehensive social networking site. Users can connect to Twitter and post information 140 characters at a time via text message, the Web and desktop widgets. This makes it harder for the Iranian government to censor. To shut down the tweets, the government would have to cut off a lot more than block the site behind its internet firewall.

The raw Twitter feeds about Iran are more like an abstract painting than a photograph. They take the emotional temperature and give the reader a vague idea of what’s happening now in Tehran. But the flow of tweets out of Iran, constantly repeated by others, has become an emblem of the power of information.

Erin K. O'Neill is an assistant director of photography for the Missourian and a master's degree candidate at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Published in the Columbia Missourian on Wednesday, June 24, 2009.