Network Tatoos

TED is really an great way to get new ideas. Yesterday I watched a video which talked about network tatoos. The man argued that network tatoos, like your posts and photos in facebook, twitter, linkedin and so on, would live much longer than your physical body. This gives kind of immortality. Andy Warhol has a famous saying:

In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.

That’s totally possible. This is a flat world and information is circulating unprecendentedly fast, even censorship cannot help. Just look at the great network events in China.

Another story told in the video is Atalanta. Atalanta is a greatest runner and she challenged the anybody: if you won, she would marry you, but if you lose, you would die. How did Hippomenes beat her? Well, he had wonderfull little golden apples. Every time Atalanta ran ahead, he would roll a little golden apple. She kept distracted and he eventually won the race.

This is true. The golden apples may be the red points that indicates updates in your QZone, Wechat, Weibo, whatever. You take out your cellphone and plan to do something. Suddenly you see the red points and want to check what’s new. When you switch back you even forget what you plan to do preciously.

The golden apple applies not only to your social posts, but also the digital products. You always want to have the state-of-art iPhones, Cameras. You always ran after the digital producers and picked up what they rolled to you.

Missing your focus is quite easy in the networked society. They dismember your life goals and make your life out of control.

I really love the analogy of golden apples.