There are a few fundamental concepts that people often misunderstand. One is freedom. Some people think freedom means being able to do whatever you want–having no restrictions or obligations. Of course, such ideas are really antithetical to true freedom. A nation cannot be truly free without paying some sort of price. Freedom is both a right and a responsibility. The responsibilities, rather than limiting the rights, preserve them. They make freedom more valuable, not less. For instance, as Americans we are guaranteed freedom of speech, but with certain conditions. You cannot yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre and expect protection under the law. This “rule” makes your freedom more precious. Freedom of speech would mean less in a world where anyone could say anything they wanted any time they wanted–regardless of the appropriateness and accuracy of their words.
Chapter 3 of Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or Be Programmed discusses a similar paradox: choice. Every day digital technology forces us to make choices. Nothing worthwhile can be represented or distributed digitally without someone making a choice. In order for digital technology to work, life must be reduced to yes-or-no/black-and-white and translated into digits. Someone chooses which characteristics are important enough to record, and what is the best way to represent them digitally. Then users are given choices like what color scheme to use for their email inbox and how to describe their relationship status. All these choices sound like a good thing, at first. It seems like more choices should make life better. As Rushkoff points out, “We all want the freedom to choose, and the history of technology can easily be told as the story of how human beings gave themselves more choices: the choice to live in different climates, to spend our time doing things other than hunting for food, to read at night, and so on” (pg 52).
The problem with the ever-expanding array of choices is that something has been left out. We can choose, for instance, black or white. We can choose red, green, yellow, blue, orange, purple or tie-dye. We can choose stripes or spots. We can choose fast or slow, day or night, big or small. We can choose to like it or dislike, and we can choose how to express our opinion. But we cannot choose not to choose. “The one choice we’re not getting to make is whether or not to deal with all this choice. Choice stops us, requiring that we make a decision in order to move on. Choice means selecting one option while letting all the others go” (pg 52). We are free to choose we want from a seemingly endless list, but we cannot have it all. The list itself is limiting, no matter how long it is, because no list can contain all the complex in-betweens of reality. And of course, choices we are forced to make are not really choices at all. Rushkoff gives the example of a hostage choosing which of her children will be killed first; that’s not really a choice at all.
In a globalized society, it is becoming more and more difficult to “choose not to choose.” We can choose how, why, where, when and with whom we participate, but we cannot choose whether we participate. Social networking is slowly taking on a similar role in our lives. With each passing year, the idea of just “opting out” of social networking becomes more implausible. Certainly there are good reasons to opt out: from privacy concerns to prioritization. However, it looks like soon, “opting out” will either be impossible, impractical, or just futile. It’s a strange world we live in, where more choices means less freedom–but perhaps no less strange than more freedom meaning fewer choices.