The Reader

I blogged previously on this subject (see Feed the World), but I've been introducing myself to one particular feed reader lately. As I surf the old super information highway, frequenting my favourite virtual haunts, I pick up any RSS feeds present and subscribe. Before I was adding them to my bookmarks but now my current reader of choice is Google's.

It's great! I get all the items I'm interested in flagged up on one page. For example, Russell Brand's latest column on the Guardian website, the lastest album reviews from NME, football news from the BBC etc, etc. It's like my own personalised web-centre just for my needs. Me, me, me, me, me.

I do wonder what all this means though. One of my little pleasures in life is to sit on a Saturday morning, turn the crisp pages of the Guardian, sip a cup of tea and wait for Football Focus to come on.

With my new found internet addiction, I'm more likely to be sat with headphones in my ears listening to Spotify and updating my twitter profile. "So what", I tell myself, "As long as you're having fun."

But that's just it. I'm not sure I am having fun. When I'm not near a PC to access my twitter account, I'm fearful that I'm missing out on some grand revelation posted in my absence. In truth, over the month or two I've been using the most fashionable of social networks, I think I've only read one real piece of news at all, and that was the fact we're having a baby, something I posted myself! I even received a text to say, "Blimey, you don't expect to see that kind of thing on twitter!"

I love Google Reader, but when I'm not on it I can't help but think about how many new posts, blogs etc., have come in since I last logged on. If, heaven forbid, I don't get a chance to do so for a couple of days, I'm swamped by the weighty bulk of notifications awaiting me.

There's a well worn phrase - 'information overload' - which I've always disliked, used as it is to encompass anything a smidge more complex than the instruction "Click here". However, I have to wonder whether in my clamour for new ways to express myself, absorb culture and keep informed, I'm not somehow diluting everything into an endless list of sound bites 140 characters in length.

I suppose that's why I enjoy this blog so much. I can delve, dip, discuss and deconstruct the world around me with as many characters as I deem necessary (I fully accept this may be more than the reader deems necessary. Tough! - who's blog is it anyway!?).

As we venture boldly into the web 2.0 age, I hope we don't lose sight of the pleasure that can be gleaned from thumbing a good paperback or flicking through the Arts supplement.

I suppose the methods we use for devouring information in the future will ultimately always be at the behest of the individual reader. The real question lies in whether the reader is a he, a she or an it?