Zoella : Who Wrote Girl Online?

Who Wrote Girl Online?

A Blog Entirely Free of Ghosts (but which I previously published here)

Ghost writers aren’t uncommon, there are very few stigmas attached to the authors that use them or the writers that eventually come forward to claim a little responsibility.

Yet Zoella has taken a break from the internet in an uncanny case of literary déjà vu.

In the same way as an online backlash forces protagonist Penny offline in Girl Online, negative responses to the ‘help’ she received from a well-known young adult writer and a high-ranking editor has made Zoe Sugg, author, take a step back from social media (NB. she has NOT quit YouTube).

Previously, I mentioned Zoe Sugg, AKA Zoella, in a blog about thought-leadership. As a leading voice for fashionistas, YouTuber’s and young people the world over; I described Zoella as part one of a group of powerful online personalities that exemplify the ‘power of we’.

The release of Zoe Sugg’s first book emphasised her enviable, much-loved status. Girl Online disappeared off shelves faster than Harry Potter, selling a record-breaking 78,109 copies in the first week.

Yet even in the early days there were a few raised eyebrows. Readers and rivals questioned whether ‘Zoe Sugg’ was merely an ‘authorial manifestation’, a name slapped onto a book that somebody else wrote.

And as the reviews came pouring in, critiquing the story that is tooth-achingly sweet and more than a little predictable, this little chink became a fissure.

I should probably admit here that I spent four hours reading this book cover-to-cover, which is why I was intrigued when Penguin Random House admitted that Zoe Sugg’s first novel was not written entirely by the YouTube sensation.

“To be factually accurate,” claimed a spokesperson, “you would need to say Zoe Sugg did not write the book Girl Online on her own.”

So she had help.

Is this really a problem?

This might answer some of your tweets! X pic.twitter.com/NCuC3VhxiG
— Zoë (@ZozeeBo) December 7, 2014

I have mixed feelings about the news, uncertain about how I feel about ghostwriting in general but also in the way the story has been handled.

Siobhan Curham, a young adult author, allegedly helped create Girl Online. Recognised in the acknowledgements as being ‘with [Zoella] ever step of the way’, it was this brief mention that has given rise to much of the speculation that Curham wrote the book. I sympathise for a ghostwriter whose novel rockets to success under the banner of somebody else’s name, however, what we need to remember is that a ghostwriter signs a contract. They agree to the terms and conditions of ghost-hood.

This means Curham would have known that she was going to sign away her rights to authorship or even co-authorship when she agreed to help Penguin Random House make Zoella’s first novel a reality. It wasn’t stolen from her and ‘thanking’ her supporters on twitter probably wasn’t best practice for a ghostwriter…

On the other hand, why didn’t the publisher think to make this information clear from the start?

Ghostwriting is a relatively common practice. In fact, going beyond the celebrity examples of Katie Price or David Beckham’s ghostwritten literature, plenty of popular novels, especially children and young adult literature, have shadow writers. R.L Stein’s children’s horror stories, Goosebumps, were ghostwritten by various writers; The Man With the Golden Gun was the first Bond novel to be written by someone other than Ian Fleming but it was not the last; and there are even unconfirmed rumours surrounding To Kill A Mockingbird’s potential link to Truman Capote.

Now, unsurprisingly, many have leapt on the opportunity to tear into Zoella for being dishonest.

However, despite the people calling Girl Online an act of fraud, or plagiarism (it is actually, by definition, neither), the sad fact is that Curham would never have received this attention if her name had been beneath the title.

Because Zoella is the name that sells. She is the entrepreneur, the personality, the businesswoman and the brand.

Whether or not she is an author, she is, and will remain, an inspiration for her fans, and a thought-leader who has carved out a niche in a world where multi-channel media reigns. With millions of subscribers who love her, an endorsement from Zoella on her YouTube channel will indubitably still be worth its weight in commercial advertising regardless of the current media scrutiny surrounding her abilities as a writer.

Zoella is taking the fall but really, if there is blame to lay, surely it should be laid upon an institution that perhaps needs a little bit of rethink. It would be nice for a ghostwriter to be recognised for their prose and for success to be shared when it is due…

…But if the story winds its way to its natural HEA, #WeLoveYouGirlOnline will be matched by #WeLoveYouZoella, Zoe Sugg will bounce back to our blue screens with a smile and the déjà vu will come full circle.

And, hopefully, Curham’s sales will skyrocket as well.

Penny discovers Girl Online is still loved by fans, (p.335)

Disclaimer: This blog is free of ghosts. We tested it with the Specter Detecter AND a PKE Meter, just for good measure. Also if you would like to read TEN MORE THINGS about why we shouldn’t be horrible to Zoe Sugg, read the piece on the Guardian by Matt Haig (author of The Humans). It is excellent. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER

Vloggers vs Bloggers: Who do you love more and why?

Bloggers vs Vloggers : 

Thought Leadership in the Age of Collectivity

Top fashion and beauty vlogger Zoella

Not that long ago I wrote about collective mourning, about how grief had changed because of the way that we use social media. But it’s not just our emotions that are shared.

Collectivity and collaboration have fast become the default mode of the 21st century.

Online social media has exploded and now more than ever, our personal and business success is dependent on the way that we work with the larger world around us: from people, to brands, to corporations.

We talk in terms of influencers and thought-leaders: the power of an individual voice discussing ideas with their audience. Establishing a person or business as one of these leaders is dependent upon their appeal and relevance within the larger whole, in inaugurating them into the collective voice and then making them stand out.

It can be tricky. Yet one of the least expensive and most effective ways to create a platform is to become part of the shared world of multichannel media. Tweeting, blogging, having a Facebook page – this programmes the self into the digital landscape. Plugging in, the virtually extended reach of a social media can be a dynamic tool in the would-be thought-leader’s arsenal.

This might seem strange, after all back in the beginning of blogs, around the early 1990s, they were just ‘web logs’: easy-to-add-to, often journal-like, sometimes inspired but often rambling, online diaries.

Now there are tech blogs, sex blogs, philosophy blogs, blogs about dogs, blogs about cats, blogs aboutdogs sitting on cats, and, of course, blogs like this one which offer a mix of business advice and current affairs analysis. Interestingly, as Andrew Sullivan discussed, ‘poised between media and blogs can be as nuanced and well-sourced as traditional journalism, but they have the immediacy of talk radio … blogging is changing the media world’. More than that, it is changing the world in general. Despite being online, they have power and prominence that increasingly impacts the ‘real’, offline world.

The Huffington Post, of course, is the prime example. The Guardian put it perfectly when they said that ‘the history of political blogging might be usefully divided into pre- and post-Huffington’. The Huffington Post turned an underdog hobby into a lucrative market space. Now, some bloggers are far more powerful than journalists. Some blogs offer the widest and most influential marketing tool available, if you just know how to tap into it.

They can drive traffic, generate sales, create additional content, and instigate new conversations. Informal, often colloquial, they’re a relaxed way of engaging an audience without spending thousands on a platform. It takes time and dedication but once the ball is rolling, it’s out there

For example, on Wednesday, I’ve been invited to a bloggers event hosted by Bloomsbury. It’s a Christmas Special event with James Runcie, whom many will now know because of his bromantic, 1950s Grantchester Mysteries, the first of which was recently dramatized for ITV. Whether you agree or disagree with the plaudits calling the television adaptation ‘the new Morse’ or the criticisms that it was ‘undemanding’, there is no doubt that overall the six-part adaptation of James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death was successful. So I wondered – why invite bloggers, everyday people using social media, to this kind of event?

Would you like to win this @GrantchesterUK bundle? Join us at 1pm today for our final giveaway! #Grantchester pic.twitter.com/Vog03oVrO4
— Lovely Day (@LovelyDayUK) December 8, 2014

It’s to keep the conversation rolling whilst the professionals, ie. the journalists and critics, lose interest in the off season. Plus, the conversations of the big, relevant bloggers means the series, in print and on screen, will reach a bigger, more relevant audience. This works particularly well because bloggers use social media accounts in addition to their blogs– so content travels far and fast.

Beyond the bloggerati, there are the vloggerati. One sponsored three minute video or single tweet from the Digifest Generation of video bloggers can reach millions in moments; having just one of them at James Runcie’s event could reignite the conversation, attract more readers or viewers, sell thousands more copies.

Video bloggers, like their wordy counterparts, have become thought-leaders, influencers and trend-makers. Ranging from ‘vloggers’ like CharlieIsSoCoolLike, who rose to fame after vlogging ‘How to be English’, to the effervescent Jenna Marbles or the prominent beauty and fashion vlogger, Zoella, AKA Zoe Sugg – the fact is that they have become sensations on and offline.

Every one of these ‘professional internet humans’ has an invaluable stake in the media.

Unlike bloggers, often hidden behind their words, the vloggers appear closer to their audience. They speak to them, answer their comments in their videos, offer direct advice, engage and befriend them, albeit through a camera. Many recognise these fresh voices as key to reaching younger audiences, for commercial advertising but also as a replacement to broadcast and print media.

Both do engage though, and this is crucial, because they are directly appealing to the communal internet, putting themselves in the public eye and asking for feedback, even criticism. They generate an audience. Good ones then reply and engage with that audience; the one-way street of publication becomes a multichannel conversation.

Admittedly, vlogging and blogging have pros and cons, and they are not for everyone, not even for businesses striving to be thought-leaders.

However, in today’s shared, social, collective sphere, online media is an indubitable force. They are an intrinsic part of contemporary society.

My point is not to convince anyone to become a blogger or a vlogger. My point is this: brands and businesses, individuals and extended networks: no one can afford to ignore the pull and drive of the digital world. If you want to be a thought-leader, you need to embrace all sides of the media to engage your audience.

At the very worst, blogs and vlogs are narcissistic echo-chambers of the online world. But they have revolutionized the way that the media works. Blogs can be the equivalent of a column in a national paper. Vlogs can be a TedXtalk or a segment of primetime tv. They reach across the globe and enable collective and remote collaboration, thrive because they, as so eloquently put by Ernesto Priego, embody the ‘power of we’.

And if you want to be a thought-leader, that is one of the most powerful forces in this strange, new, digital world.

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 

SCRIBBLER

This blog was previously published by me for PHA Media 

Trolling : From Katie Hopkins to Julien Blanc

Julien Blanc and Katie Hopkins: Should we Feed the Trolls?

Disclaimer: All over the internet there are warnings about feeding the trolls. I am about to ignore them. Please bear with me.

When Katie Hopkins offered support to ‘controversial pick up artist’ Julien Blanc, according to the Huffington Post, the story surprised no one.

 Seeming to cultivate her status as a professional troll, she responded to the polls calling for Blanc to be denied a visa with a roll of her metaphorical eyes and once again managed to command the attention of every media outlet poised for her next inflammatory comment.

Next up - plans to ban a bloke from the UK as we are frightened of what he will say to people paying to see him. pic.twitter.com/Zz6OivTHIo
— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) November 16, 2014

Blanc, a Swiss-American who claims to be able to ‘game’ women so ‘hard’ that they ‘beg’ for his attention, has been called the ‘Most Hated Man In The World’ after a video of him choking a woman in Tokyo went viral and Australia gave him the boot. And despite an apology interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, shaking the reputation of a racist and sexually violent misogynist is likely to take sometime.

 Did Katie Hopkins help him at all? Probably not. If anything, it surely emphasises his unenviable position. Why shouldn’t the Most Hated Man In The World have the support of Britain’s Most Hated Woman?

 But why don’t we look again at that tweet.

Accompanied by a photo of Blanc holding up a t-shirt, which has spawned almost as many headlines and hashtags as he has, Hopkins’ actual message seems to be: why is the UK afraid of a man who looks a lot like your average bloke about to go on a boozy holiday… and a lot less like the usual suspects who receive notice to ‘keep out of our country’.

 And I don’t like to admit it, but there’s the distinct possibility Hopkins might have an actual, valid, and (dare I say it) meaningful point.

 The vast power of social media is such that within days hundreds of thousands of people were signing up to keep Blanc’s ‘dating advice’ out of our country. There are two intriguing elements to this. The first is about the basic principles of free speech. The names on the sixteen-strong list of ‘banned persons’ from the Home Office belong to those ‘considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke, foment, glorify or justify terrorism’.

Thinking about what Hopkins posted, Julien Blanc doesn’t really fit into this category. Could the real question come down to freedom of speech? Can you really ban someone like Blanc on the basis of what he thinks?

What he reportedly offers is insight into making men sexually attractive. What the media revealed was a young chauvinist teaching seminars in demeaning and assaulting women. Indubitably unpleasant, his seminars are, unquestionably, ‘offensive… inappropriate’ and ‘emotionally scarring’. But no crime has been officially committed here. As Andy J. Semotiak said in his Forbes article, ‘simply holding obnoxious views is insufficient to deny entry’.

 Then the second point is this: would we have even have heard of Julien Blanc, would his name be as well known and his tactics as well publicised in the UK, if not for the heavy ‘no-platforming’ on the part of petitions desperate to keep him out?

 A ‘no platform’, encapsulates the idea that certain viewpoints have zero right to be expressed in public debate, and was described in The New Statesman. Powered by the vast power of social media, this ‘no platform’ for Julien Blanc worked so that within days hundreds of thousands of people were signing up to keep his ‘seduction advice’ out of our country.

 Does the success of the ‘no platform’ for Julien Blanc represent the power of the public voice? Does it suggest that we are stifling debate?

 It doesn’t really make much difference.

 Petitioning to keep him out gave him more attention and created a public profile through digital media that some people would pay for. The Guardian’s Marina Hyde certainly seems to agree, claiming that ‘bans turn ranting clerics you’ve never heard of into ones you never stop hearing about’.

 By lobbying against him, by creating a ‘no platform’, we essentially gave a little man with an even littler reputation a massive foothold in the all important column inches of the media. We fed the troll. We created the troll.

Now it doesn’t matter if he can come into the UK or not. Because now when he wants to go around spewing advice or his deliberately provocative life skills, people are going to listen through any and every medium he employs. They might not agree. They might not think what he says has any merit. But they will listen.

 This is precisely what we saw with Katie Hopkins, former Apprentice contestant and now professional ‘rent-a-gob’, Sun columnist, broadcaster and business woman. She made a name as someone with a sharp, often cruel tongue, usually appealing to some trending ‘whatever-ism’ of the day.

@KTHopkins https://t.co/5rcL6gWDtY BAHAHA "Do you want to do whatever you want to do which is probably play with yourself?" WHAT A LINE!!!!
— Richard Briggs (@dickiebird123) November 20, 2014

We gave her this platform though; we let her continue to post her many rancorous messages without censorship. Unlike Julien Blanc, for whom censorship has left him with the sole option of beaming in via Skype to talk to his British fans, Hopkins has been made to apologise a handful of times for offending people but almost always escapes further ridicule when she shrugs and tells the offendees it’s their fault for being offended.

She thrives because she trolls. And we let her.

She accepts and laughs at the outrage that she causes. And there’s always a small group somewhere accepting and laughing along with her.

Of course, there’s the slight question of whether Katie Hopkins is a traditional troll. She isn’t playing the ultimate devil’s advocate but equally she isn’t spouting opinions just to make Internet users so angry that their bloodied fingers expire trying to type an equally vitriolic defense. She seems to actually mean what she says, rather than saying it for the sake of irking 90% of the population.

Some love her for it and it maybe there’s an argument for saying her voice actually makes some issues come into the public eye that would otherwise be hidden from view. But the media definitely feeds her and if anyone tried to take her offline, I’m sure there would be outcry at those attempting to silence her voice.

My thought is that the media, particularly online and social media, complains about trolling and the spread of cyberbullying, but then it endorses or employs the same tactics when it suits the in vogue agenda.

Katie Hopkins has not empowered Katie Hopkins. Julien Blanc has not empowered Julien Blanc. The voice of shared media has.

Regardless of whether you think that Blanc should never hold a visa to the UK, or if you find Hopkins funny, multi-channel media has the power to make sure that Ice Buckets succeed, Comet-Landings disappear behind Kim Kardashian’s ginormous derrière, chauvinists become (un)popular icons, and trolls can stay beneath the crooked bridge, ready to gobble up any stray Billy-goats.

So I think this begs the question, and really the whole of this blog: should we feed the trolls?

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
 SCRIBBLER

ps. For more comments and information - why not go to the PHA Media website where I first published this post!

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Critics are throwing cold water over the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but there’s something to be learnt from the viral video campaign that’s made more than a splash using social media.

Just when I thought I might have got away with it, when the whole craze looked ready to combust, it finally happened. I was nominated to do the Ice Bucket Challenge.  Meaning: you can now expect me to dump icy cold water over my head, film it, and post it up on my social media with an nifty hashtag #icebucketchallenge or #MND for your viewing pleasure.  

More importantly, it will hopefully add to the chain and bring that little bit more attention to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Motor Neuron Disease in the UK. As a progressive neurodegenerative disease, ALS/MND leaves many sufferers completely paralysed, incapable of feeding themselves and eventually unable to breath on their own. It is a truly devastating condition and whilst it affects relatively few people, only half of those diagnosed survive the first three years and only 10% the first ten. Dumping ice water on our heads is meant to remind us of the paralysing effects of the disease as the cold instigates a similar albeit much, much smaller and short-lived physiological response.

Anyone paying attention will have followed the challenge’s tidal sweep. Gaining momentum after personalities from US show, Morning Drive, took part live-on air, the campaign quickly earned massive celebrity shout-outs from Jimmy Fallon, Will Smith, Victoria Beckham and Benedict Cumberbatch (dowsed five times in his video).

Oh my days Benny :') Benedict Cumberbatch Ice Bucket Challenge http://t.co/t4FA3Skpgv
— The Doctors Bow Tie. (@Whovian_96) August 27, 2014

After that it rolled over to everyone else, hopping the Atlantic with a conspiratorial wink, encouraging social media uses worldwide to take part, donate and nominate.  It’s definitely made more than a splash. It’s swept across the globe in a tsnami of chilly, damp munificence.

Since becoming a social media phenomenon around three weeks ago the ALS Association has raised nearly £50 million (circa USD$80 million), roughly 500% more than it raised in the same period last year. It’s become so popular Macmillan Cancer Care and other charities have attempted to appropriate the campaign for themselves, to varying degrees of success.  As Dan Diamond wrote in Forbes, ‘the #ALSIceBucketChallenge—is everywhere. It’s annoying. But it’s working.’

However, as Diamond notes, many are growing tired of seeing the same videos over and over, those taking part have been accused of flagrant self-promotion rather than charitableness (aka: Slacktivism), and recently there’s been a sense of internet one-upmanship that has not always ended well.  It’s no longer enough to simply toss water over your head and shudder at the cold, now it’s necessary to endure several bucket loads, maybe even a forklift full – or an aeroplane – in order to gain the respect of your online buddies. The challenge itself should not be dangerous, and the number of funny, incredibly honest ‘fail’ videos could probably generate an entire episode of You’ve Been Framed but some people really have taken it too far. Reckless behaviour has allegedly been linked to the hospitalisation of one man and the death of a teenager in Inverkeithin, Fife. Part of the issue seems to be the peer-pressurised element of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Once you have been nominated, not performing can lead to criticism and even online abuse from ‘friends’ and followers.

Moreover, one of the risks is that the longer the campaign thrives, the more likely it seems to generate negative attention. The Guardian commented on this by suggesting that the social media that birthed the craze could also kill it. After all, there’s #droughtshaming to remind you that in places like Henan, China and California ‘taps have dried up, lakes and reservoirs are emptying and water wastage is being fined’. Plus some celebrities are refusing the challenge on ethical grounds. Pamela Anderson’s decision to forego the challenge because of reported medical testing on animals has already generated a following. The question of how much money is actually spent on salaries and publicity instead of research has similarly become a point of contention. 

People in drought-hit Henan do 'empty bucket challenge' instead of #IceBucketChallenge http://t.co/sQTWpE7PTs pic.twitter.com/MVcEgYbMMc
— China.org.cn (@chinaorgcn) August 23, 2014

But as we’ve already noted, the death knell could sound in the form of accidents and fatal injuries. Becoming associated with deaths and foolhardy egoism was the beginning of the end for Neknominate, which required participants to down alcohol and led to five UK deaths. As more become disillusioned with the plethora of soggy friends posting their videos the more likely it is for the negative press to take over the positivity and humour that has largely dominated thus far. Yet even Neknominate led to a more positive counter-campaign: ‘Donate-Nominate’, which asked participants to leave the beer and donate blood instead. It seems people want to use social media for good causes, even when posturing attempts to subvert it. Perhaps this is what we are seeing when people react against the participants who fail to mention the charity or cause.

Viral chains and popular organisations are not new. Ever since the Civil Rights Movement contemporary media (in particular television and radio) has been used to emphasise mass protests and popular causes. In 1986, Hands Across America instigated a benefit event in which 6.5 million people held hands in a human chain across the continental US. And in 1989, 2million people created a ‘Chain of Freedom’ across 600km to draw attention to the popular vision of Baltic independence from the USSR.  With so many involved, these human chains symbolised unity within a nation, gained international attention and like the Ice Bucket Challenge, emphasised the power of mass communication when the message was both emotionally captivating and visually stunning. The ALS Challenge may not be ‘emotional’ or ‘stunning’ per se, but it does tap into the desire to be part of a larger cause and there has certainly been some heart-wrenching content mixed in with the humorous and downright hilarious.

This hilarious, heartbreaking #ALSIceBucketChallenge is a reminder of what the craze is all about http://t.co/VVXO3wq5EM
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) August 21, 2014

What is poignant, is that it has appropriated Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to generate the perfect media storm. To make a disease and its charity personal as well as global. 

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has done everything right. Timed perfectly to coincide with summer sunshine, it took a niche plight, mixed in some celebrities (which led to more A-listers than probably ever anticipated), made it a personal challenge that everyone could interact and engage with and they kept it simple. They let it grow and take on a life of its own and here we are in the present, wondering where it might go next.

Whatever the verdict, be it a health risk or a meaningful act of charity, I will tipping a bucket over my head this evening.

Thank you for the nomination.

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 

SCRIBBLER

The Internet of Things

Brave New Digital World

The Internet of Things and Questions on the Cognitive

London Technology Week took place in June and, for those that know me, this is kind of an awesome deal. 

Why? Because my dissertation of strange and exciting ideas focuses on this idea called Extended Mind Theory. It all started with these two philosopher types, Andy Clark and David Chalmers, who wrote an essay in the early 1990s positing a form of 'active externalism'. This, most simply put, is the idea that there is a dynamic and constantly developing relationship between our minds (ie. our cognitive powers such as thinking, remembering etc) and the external world around us. 

For example: it's pretty normal to use calenders to remember events like birthdays or meetings, and almost everyone uses their mobile phone to store other people's numbers/address/email (or perhaps a phone/address book). We believe, because these events/numbers/emails correspond to a name in our little calenders/phones/books that the information is true. We believe it the authenticity of the information stored inside these external objects. But storing information in this way has historically been associated with our ability to remember, a 'mental event' that takes place inside our brains. So in the end, Extended Mind Theory (let's call it EMT), as suggested by Clark and Chalmers, argues that the hegemony of skin and skull is broken by things like notebooks (Otto's in their case) or more recently mobile phones. They act as the mind acts, storing and reliably retrieving information for us.

As Clark and Chalmer's put it:

'If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (so we claim) part of the cognitive process. Cognitive processes ain't (all) in the head!'

A bit like this. That pencil would have been handy.

Right so... what does this have to do with London Technology Week? Well it's because during those few days, attention came to the much-spoken-about, not-so-much-understood idea of 'The Internet of Things'. 

Considering how much the term is bandied around, it sometimes feels like people either know exactly what they're talking about when they discuss The Internet of Things or absolutely nothing at all. It's not a new idea though. Not exactly. A basic breakdown is simply that it's inanimate objects - thermostats, streetlamps, mobile phones, watches, shoes, that sort of 'thing' - only connected to the internet. 

"That's billion with a B" - interesting video here if you want to know more from Not-Me

And why connect all that stuff to the internet? Ok, good point. Think about the amount of runners now who have GPS, a heart rate monitor and a personal trainer all linked up through their watches or phones. In fact,  I believe Nike have trainers that come complete with a GPS in the heel so you can calculate how far and fast you run through their running app! I'd love me some of those! As for thermostats, if you're always turning the heat up in the wee hours of the night because you're chilly, your new 'Internet of Thermostats' will store that information and put it to use so that instead of you waking up with cold feet and needing the heat on, the computer can set the right temperature for going to sleep, staying asleep and waking up, all before you so much as shiver. A great article to check out to see how 'Things' and Smart Technology are adapting is Leo Mirani's in Quartz. 

Hang on, so what does this have to do with EMT again, that's why you're so excited about London Technology Week and the ideas behind this stuff right? Yup! All in all, the ideas driving The Internet of Things are probably the most fascinating because it's a marked step in terms of our social evolution but it's also fascinating when considering our cognitive evolution. There have been several articles written in the not-so-distant-future about how the internet, especially search engines like google, are affecting us. Is Google Making Us Stupid? That's the now-famous question asked by Nicholas Carr in 2008 and it's still pertinent today. Many of us will not bother to remember certain things because Google can be accessed whenever and however we want through Smart technology. Many more of us no longer bother with the epic dinner table debates on who wrote what song or who won what race or what the difference is between a pond and a lake, because at the touch of a button: Google will tell us. 

But since it's so reliably used in this way, since it directs our belief system and remembers our favourite searches, and since it not-so-surreptitiously lays down a traceable path from A to B in much the same way that our minds would do exactly that when laying down new information - what implications does this have for concepts such as active externalism and EMT? Could this mean that somehow, everything Google knows, we now 'know' in the way that we 'know' where our shoes are in the morning or where we were on 9/11? It seems ridiculous to support such a notion. It seems counter-intuitive. 

A more likely scenario is that much like the notebooks and phone books - traditional and digital - the internet has memory-like qualities when used in a particular way. It also has further mind-like qualities insofar as it allows us to more easily complete complex arithmetic (type a sum or a conversion into Google and doop-de-doop it's done!) or figure out non-verbal reasoning and spacial problems. And without the internet, our internal structures, how we try to do things in our minds, would be completely transformed without them. It's a 'coupling' thing. Now that so many of us are so reliably coupled with a Smart device, our mental landscape would be utterly different if that device was lost. 

What implications might that have for us ethically? In Sophie Kinsella's Got Your Number, the protagonist has her phone stolen out of her hand by a cyclist. This heroine, who has just lost her priceless engagement ring as well, is clearly more upset about the phone than the ring. How can she live without her phone? It's like having a limb ripped away from her. She feels like she's lost something irreplaceable. She's been violated by a mugger who didn't even stop and face her to snatch her phone away. If EMT was ever mainstreamed, could disruption to our 'extended mind' count as grievous bodily harm? Would it mean that internet access genuinely represented a basic human right rather than a helpful hand in our daily lives? Would it mean that our personal identities became wrapped up in the Internet of Things?

   

And parts of that sound really creepy, you say? Indeed, The Internet of Thing has a creepy side. Big Brother creepy. When we talk about the Covert Sphere and the Surveillance State, we're really talking in complete ignorance to how things might be in the world of the Internet of Things. With the internet constantly taking in and adapting your environment to suit you, your whole world extends into a semi-public sphere. We find it difficult when the idea of our Facebook being accessed by our boss is mentioned, so what would happen if your boss could also see what you keep in your fridge or how far you really ran when you said you did five miles - just because everything is linked up and cohered through your multiple smart devices? More and more would come under public observation, and if that happens, what happens to the ideas of personal identity and the private self - does it disappear as our minds extend and our mental spaces become shared, public spaces like Google or Facebook? 

There's a lot that's still unknown, but with the technological, psychological and ethical all being challenged by the rapid growth in The Internet of Things, it seems there's much that we need to discuss. Let the conversation commence!

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER