For Undisconnectables, Tomorrow May Bring Relief From Obsession

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "John F. McMullen" <observer () westnet com>
Date: November 3, 2004 12:58:21 AM EST
To: johnmac's living room <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Cc: Inwood2001 <inwood2001 () yahoogroups com>, CardinalFarley List  
<CardinalFarley () yahoogroups com>, Commonweal Mailing List  
<commonweal () yahoogroups com>, Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Gomes: For Undisconnectables, Tomorrow May Bring Relief From  
Obsession

From the Wall Street Journal --  
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109926556403660662,00.html? 
mod=technology%5Fcolumns%5Ffeatured%5Flsc

For Undisconnectables, Tomorrow May Bring Relief From Obsession
by Lee Gomes

You've heard, ad nauseam, about this election year's Undecideds, those  
who still can't make up their minds between two quite different  
presidential candidates. But there is another large group of citizens,  
spawned by the Internet, about whom you've heard virtually nothing: the  
Undisconnectables. On this the last day of Decision 2004, it's time to  
finally give the Undisconnectables their due.

Last year, the Internet was said to be poised to transform presidential  
politics in two ways: by bringing a populist cast to fund raising, and  
by giving candidates a new, direct method of reaching voters. The first  
prediction came true resoundingly; the second one, much less so. As  
with many other things involving technology, even the most elaborate  
political Web site has devolved from being a novel competitive  
advantage to a simple must-have, like bumper stickers and lawn signs.

The one aspect of the Web and the 2004 election that no one saw coming  
is the extent to which so many people would become utterly obsessed  
with following the race online -- to the point where they're incapable  
of disconnecting from their Web browsers for fear of missing the latest  
poll, the most recent blog posting, the latest headline at Yahoo News.

That has certainly described my life during the last few months. I had  
assumed, though, I was in a shame-filled, tiny minority -- until I  
began asking others how the election was going for them. I gradually  
discovered that nearly everyone I talked to shared my dirty little  
secret of Undisconnectablity.

The coup de grce came last week, when the president of a company -- a  
fairly big one at that, with a looming IPO -- opened up and confessed  
his own Internet election addiction. It was a breakthrough moment; we  
nearly hugged.

We immediately began to dissect the methodologies different polls use  
to determine who is or is not a "likely voter." If you're a fellow  
Undisconnectable, you know what an issue that is.

There is no Kinsey Report estimating the Undisconnectable population in  
this country. But it is a safe bet that U.S. productivity will surge on  
Wednesday, when all of them delete the likes of electoral-vote.com from  
their lists of browser favorites and get back to work.

(This, of course, assumes that the election won't be a repeat of 2000  
and drag on for weeks. If it does, the problem will instantly get a  
whole lot worse. No one, particularly Undisconnectables, wants that to  
happen.)

Some might say the phenomenon of an election-paralyzed population is a  
function of the importance of this particular contest, which both  
Democrats and Republicans routinely say is the most important in our  
lifetime.

But the Internet itself shoulders much of the blame. One of the lessons  
of the Web is that if people have access to information, they will  
consume it, whether they are hungry or not.

Who among us didn't spend much of the late 1990s stock bubble hitting  
the "refresh" button on the Web pages that held our Web portfolios,  
even on slow trading days? Is doing a Google news search every 15  
minutes on "bush and kerry and poll" really all that different?

What's more, Undisconnectables can claim that they aren't just  
passively observing the election, they are also helping shape it.  
Another trend of the 2004 season is the extent to which the language of  
fields such as literary criticism has infiltrated discussion of the  
campaign. Much attention is paid to the "narrative," or storyline, of  
the election. Another big word is "meme," which is a fancy way of  
saying "recurring idea." (Two big memes from 2004: Kerry is a  
flip-flopper; Bush refuses to acknowledge mistakes.)

In the blogosphere, which Undisconnectables prefer to the comforts of  
home, you see talk all the time about how everyone should be out there  
helping shape the narrative to their candidate's advantage. "This  
should be the new meme" has become a battle cry.

Sometimes, it works. The Bush blogosphere played a major role in  
forcing CBS to backtrack on the Bush National Guard memos. Liberal  
bloggers took the lead in putting pressure on Sinclair Broadcasting to  
modify its plans to show a documentary critical of John Kerry. (Blogs,  
by the way, are as starkly red-blue as the rest of the country.)

Advanced Undisconnectables -- the real pros -- follow events online so  
closely, and in real time, that as soon as something happens, it  
becomes old news, and they go on and look for the next event, the next  
trend, the next aspiring meme. This group has little use for evening  
news shows, which are, after all, hours old. As for the next day's  
newspapers, well, they might as well be history books for all the new  
news they will contain.

It's been a great run, but -- sigh -- now it's nearly over. Tomorrow  
morning, we Undisconnectables will be up bright and early, trolling for  
exit polls. The afternoon and evening will be spent opening champagne  
or crying in our beer.

After that, there will be the spat of post-partum depression inevitable  
after an experience of this intensity. We will never live through the  
likes of it again. At least not until 2008.

Send your comments to lee.gomes () wsj com

Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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   "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra
   "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson
   "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from  
magic"
    -- Arthur C. Clarke
    "You Gotta Believe" - Frank "Tug" McGraw (1944 - 2004 RIP)

                          John F. McMullen
   johnmac () acm org johnmac () computer org johnmac () m-net arbornet org
                  johnmac () tmail com johnmac () echonyc com
           jmcmullen () monroecollege edu johnmac () alumni iona edu
              ICQ: 4368412 Skype, AIM & Yahoo Messenger: johnmac13
                  http://www.westnet.com/~observer

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