Lack of attention, lack of detail

Milton Friedman once said there was no such thing as a free lunch. Well,  he never had to endure having to be bombarded with pictures of other people’s lunch on facebook. Which is  as far as I am aware, via my statistically accurate panel of one, is becoming something of a trending phenomena on the social network.

Before social networks took off, we only had two monologues: the outer, where we communicated verbally how we thought and felt, and the inner one where we actually expressed how we thought and felt to ourselves. Now we have a third one where people use social networks to share with us the inner workings of their minds, either by tweeting a thought best not externalised or by photographing their lunch to share with the world.

Thank you for sharing a photo of your lunch, but without the context of where you are having lunch and with whom,  the delights on your plate leave me some what confused and hungry for more. At least update us on whether the food was any good or not.

This kind of shallow behaviour is food and drink to the detractors of social media because it demonstrates how we have begun to share nothing. This is social over share, information that lacks context or value. It’s also lazy - it takes no effort to photograph your lunch but it does require some to put the dish in context.

To paraphrase Clay Shirky – “The problem is not information overload, it’s filter failure.” We have to share to be seen to be and we have to share everything with everyone. I am sure your mother (who’s bound to be on facebook by now) is pleased to see you are not skipping lunch but I am not so sure how the rest of us benefit.

However if this trend continues, surely there is a role for the likes of foursquare and Groupon to get in on the act with some smart restaurant marketers. There could be all sorts of discounts for people who share their lunch (and where they got it) in a clever and informative way.

Food for thought.