Ottawa Citizen gets it utterly wrong about blogs

Very crappy story from the Ottawa Citizen today with the headline "I blog, therefore I am".

Why crappy?

Read it yourself:

I blog therefore I am: How technology inflates our egos
Misty Harris

When the contents of Paris Hilton's electronic organizer were exposed online this week, the digital breadcrumbs -- in the form of celebrity names and phone numbers -- inspired a media feeding frenzy.

But the bigger picture, quite literally, was that every photograph archived on Ms. Hilton's T-Mobile Sidekick was of herself: lovable Paris with chihuahua Tinkerbell, sexy Paris mugging on a fashion billboard, half-naked Paris making out with another woman.

Academics say the heiress's digital shrine is evidence of the narcissism afflicting the Internet generation.

From blogging to vanity surfing, technology is helping inflate a new generation of egos to magnitudes never before seen.

Ms. Hilton "is symbolic of what society is about," says Steven Miller, who teaches broadcast journalism at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "In the end, people are using (her narcissism) as a mirror on their own lives because they're so fascinated with themselves."

According to a social psychologist at the University of Georgia, heightened emphasis on individualism has led to dramatic increases in the population's self-esteem and, to a lesser extent, cases of clinical narcissism.

"People talk about the 'me generation' and baby boomers, but now it's even worse," says W. Keith Campbell. "When you're with your friends or family, typically your illusions of grandeur are constrained or minimized. But when you have a mechanism like the web, you can be anything. So all those restraints that keep our egos in check are removed."

Mr. Campbell, author of When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself, says technology can empower people to create a self-reverential universe. Image-centric gadgets such as camera phones, he notes, have "taken being shallow and made it into a concrete thing."

Similarly, weblogs allow individuals to indulge grandiose fantasies of who they are, cataloguing the nuances of their lives -- real or imagined -- for all to see.

News and gossip is obtained from websites that conform to their own view of the world, reinforcing the belief their ideologies are the right ones. Vanity surfing (searching for one's own name on the Internet) validates their place in society without requiring them to be social.

"The Internet allows us to replicate ourselves and our words, to play act our favourite roles, to communicate instantly with thousands, to influence others and, in general, to realize some of our narcissistic dreams and tendencies," says Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. Technology "seeks to render us omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent -- in other words, godlike."

On television, narcissism is a central element of many hit shows -- and not just on Ms. Hilton's own reality show, The Simple Life. Ego-binging is integral to plot lines on Will & Grace, Arrested Development, The Swan, The O.C., North Shore, Hope & Faith and a myriad of others.

It's also the driving force behind the plastic surgery reality shows that have TV audiences worshipping at the altar of the scalpel.

Mr. Miller says the media are simply reflecting society.

"We live in a culture of 'me'," he says, noting that consumer culture is largely driven by narcissism. "You have to be into yourself and about yourself in order to buy all the things you want."

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Completely ignores the bloggers like me, who don't bother with their own lives, but cover industries and areas of interest.

Utter crap.

Ciao,
Bob.