Monthly Archives: July 2013

Impact of Responsive Design on Website Usability, Aesthetics, Support and Costs

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responsivesquareEarly in the life of this blog, I posted on responsive design. For those not familiar with the term, responsive design is a type of website design that dynamically reconfigures the site for each user’s access device. Responsive sites look one way on a smartphone, another on a tablet, and yet another on laptops or desktops.

When a user accesses a responsive site, the site interrogates the user’s access device to see what the size and aspect ratio of the screen is. Then, the site serves up information from a database according to guidelines established by programmers. In practical terms, this means that for smartphones, the site is most likely dished up as one column with larger type and navigation nested under an icon.

Benefits of Responsive Design

The benefits to the user are immediately apparent. The site is “usable” on even the smallest platform. This is important because Google estimates that by 2015, half of all web searches will be from mobile devices.

The benefits to the company sponsoring the site are also clearly apparent: more users, a more satisfying user experience and lower support costs. To optimize the experience for each user, they now need only support and update one site instead of four different ones.

However, for the designers creating the site, the benefits are not so apparent. For a responsive site to work, you need  to design for the lowest common denominator (i.e., the smallest screen) and work upwards from there.

You need to keep all elements within their own areas on a rigid grid for each size so that the layouts can be reconfigured as the elements rearrange themselves. That means, the elements can’t overlap because they may no longer even be adjacent to each other as you move from one size to another.

Tradeoffs

As a result, responsive sites score far higher on functionality and usability than they do on cutting-edge design. Another consideration for responsive design is cost. Responsive sites  generally cost more than traditional sites because of their complexity.

Steep Learning Curve

My company has developed several responsive sites so far this year. The first was by far the biggest and most complex – 560 pages in seven languages. If you haven’t yet created a responsive site, I highly recommend starting with something less ambitious. The complexity of designing all those pages for all those devices in all those languages was daunting to say the least. One of the biggest problems: it just takes more words to say things in some languages than others. Some languages used 50 percent more words than English. After much tweaking, the client’s site now looks great and works great. The client loves it.

As we got in the responsive groove, each of the next three sites we designed took less time. The first contained about 100 pages and took about three weeks. The second and third each contained about 200 pages. The last of those took less than a week.

Some Modest Recommendations to Save Your Shirt

If you work in a small design shop or ad agency, here are some recommendations that can make your first foray into responsive design easier:

  1. Start small with a simple site to help get up the learning curve. Calculus isn’t for kindergarten.
  2. Don’t try to break the grid with your design. Stay within the box. Make the excitement come from the elegance, simplicity and sophistication of the overall architecture. Those techniques they taught you in art school to build visual excitement, such as establishing a pattern and then breaking it, won’t work in a responsive design. You may find a workaround, but it will be very, very costly and will probably break your site at some point.
  3. Learn the differences between content management systems before you start. Drupal, for instance, gives you far more flexibility than WordPress but WordPress is much easier to work with. Unless a) you’re an expert PHP programmer, b) you’re willing to hire one or c) you have some other compelling reason to go with Drupal, such as foreign language support, stick with WordPress. WordPress offers a wide variety of themes (templates), some of which are easily customizable (within limits), and the system is much easier to grok.
  4. The first time out, don’t try to create a responsive site yourself, especially if you’re new to content management systems and especially if the content management system you’re using is Drupal. Find a good programming firm to help you. You’re going to need a spiritual guide through the wilderness of technology.

Finally, don’t be afraid to try something new like responsive design. That’s how you grow. Every year, I try to do at least one thing that makes me really stretch. This year, it was responsive design. It makes being creative much harder because of the complexity. But in the end, it’s worth it. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy to achieve.

Viral Communications and the Internet

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So, we’ve all heard about viral communications … as with those videos that someone posts on YouTube. Someone sees it, tells their friends, who tell THEIR friends, who tell THEIR friends and so on. It’s kind of like in the days before the Internet when “rumors would spread like wildfire.”

Robert Rehak’s Own Mini-Viral Communication Experience

Two days ago, a lady named Joanne Asala in Chicago who edits CompassRose.org said that she had come across some photographs that I had posted on BobRehak.com. I took them in Chicago’s Uptown Neighborhood back in the mid-1970s and the focus of her blog is the history of that neighborhood.

She asked permission to post two of the photos and refer people to my site to see the rest. I agreed. She posted them late Wednesday night. When I woke up on Thursday morning, traffic on BobRehak.com had spiked. My photo site had received 800 visits by 4 am. Within 24 hours, that number had swelled to more than 8000 and the trend has continued today – with each visitor viewing an average of 13 photos.

Uptown28

The point of talking about this mini-viral episode is not to brag, but to point out how valuable a single link can be. Ms. Asala’s post led to several others on Facebook and as news of my “historical time capsule” (as she called it) spread throughout Chicago, my site received thousands of new visitors and tens of thousands of page views.

Ground Zero for Poverty

At one time, in the 1920s, Uptown had been a summer resort and playground for Chicago’s rich and famous. By the 1970s, the neighborhood had spiraled downward. It was ground zero for poverty. Today, it seems Uptown is lurching toward gentrification again. The photos provide an interesting historical contrast.

Many of the visitors emailed me to say how the portfolio brought back memories of growing up in the area. Some felt misty-eyed. Others wanted to purchase prints. Others wanted to know whether I had pictures of their friends in my archives. Still others emailed me about the locations in the photos and told me what they looked like today. (I now live in Houston, not Chicago.)

Positive Side Effects of Viral Communication

Thanks to Ms. Asala, I was able to meet and network with many people online that I never would have been able to meet in real life. Often I talk about the side effects of communication technology on this blog. This is one side effect that was very positive.

From a marketers point of view, viral communications can be a dream – or nightmare – come true. Which it is depends on the content of the communication being spread. Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about viral communications “gone bad.” It was a review of Steven Wyer’s compelling book about Internet defamation and invasion of privacy. His book is called Violated Online. Happily, this experience was all positive.

 Lessons learned

I took three things away from this experience:

  1. Viral communications can improve site traffic exponentially. From an average of 100 visitors a day, traffic on BobRehak.com jumped to 10,000 in a little more than 24 hours. That’s a 100x increase from just one initial link!
  2. Quality content is what keeps viral communication going. Without friends telling their friends, referrals die out.
  3. Perhaps marketers should spend more time improving the quality of their communication and less time carpet bombing the public with insipid ads and commercials that people ignore.

Media Multitasking and Depression

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shutterstock_104973152In my two previous posts, I explored the relationship between depression and Internet addiction, then depression and television viewing. Academic researchers have found positive correlations in both cases. This caused me to wonder whether a relationship existed between depression and multitasking.

Increase in Multitasking

Overall media use among America’s youth increased by 20% over the past decade. However, the amount of time spent multitasking with media (simultaneously interacting with more than one form of media) increased by 119% during the same time period [1].

Study Links Multitasking to Depression

Mark W. Becker, Reem Alzahabi, and Christopher J. Hopwood of Michigan State University published a study called Media Multitasking Is Associated with Symptoms of Depression and Social Anxiety in the February, 2013, issue of the journal Cyberspychology, Behavior and Social Networking. They studied 319 people and found that media multitasking was associated with higher rates of depression.

The authors couldn’t tell whether multitasking led to higher stress and depression or whether depressed people distracted themselves with multitasking to avoid coping with negative emotions. Given the relationships previously discussed between television viewing, Internet addiction and and depression, I have formulated an opinion on the relationship.

My Take

I personally subscribe to the theory, which Becker and his colleagues cite at the beginning of their study, that multitasking may be replacing face-to-face interactions [2], resulting in lower quality social interactions [3,4] and impaired psychosocial functioning [5,6].

Talking face-to-face and working side-by-side with friends and family is an infinitely richer and more rewarding experience than self-entertainment through media multitasking. It’s like the difference between healthy food and junk food.

Instead of working out their problems with others or honing their social skills, teens escape into a world of media multitasking. This world doesn’t argue with them, mock them, bully them or ostracize them. It’s a pleasant form of escapism that numbs the senses by overloading them. It’s fun. It’s entertaining. It’s much easier than dealing with the real world. And it doesn’t have the stigma or costs associated with drugs or alcohol.

Kids can even pretend to be doing their homework while working on their laptops. The noise coming from TV, music, and video games combines with the distraction of social networks, emails and texts to help them forget whatever is causing their depression. Being able to multitask is even considered a positive trait among many in business.

Multitasking isn’t all bad unless it turns into an addiction, such as a shopping addiction. Shopping addicts shop because their purchases give them a pleasant buzz. Then, when the bill comes due (which they can’t pay), it deepens their depression, leads to more shopping and a downward spiral. A similar mechanism may be at work with multitasking for the segment of the population prone to depression.

We’ve all fallen into the trap from time to time of mistaking activity for achievement. We succumb to the tyranny of the urgent and the easy over the important. Answering emails, texts, and checking social networks somehow seems more important than that big long-term project due at the end of the week.

The scary thing about 10.5 hours of multimedia exposure per day with kids and teenagers is that it happens at a time when their cognitive and thought processes are being formed. To the extent that it becomes a habit or an addiction, the pattern becomes hard to break.

Statistics On Depression

Depression takes a huge toll on America’s health and productivity.  According to Mental Health America, It affects more than 21 million American children and adults annually and is the leading cause of disability in the United States for individuals ages 15 to 44. Lost productive time among U.S. workers due to depression is estimated to be in excess of $31 billion per year. It is also the principal cause of more than 38,000 suicides in the U.S. each year.

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  1. Rideout V, Foehr U, Roberts D., Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. Menlo Park, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2010.
  2. Nie NH. Sociability, interpersonal relations, and the Internet: Reconciling conflicting findings. American Behavioral Scientist Special Issue: The Internet in everyday life. 2001;45(3):420-35.
  3.  Lee PSN, Leung L, Lo V, Xiong C, Wu T. Internet communication versus face-to-
    face interaction in quality of life. Social Indicators Research. 2011;100(3):375-89.
  4.  Moody EJ. Internet use and its relationship to loneliness. CyberPsychology & Behavior. 2001;4(3):393-401.
  5.  Kraut R, Patterson M, Lundmark V, Kiesler S, Mukophadhyay T, Scherlis W. Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist. 1998;53(9):1017-31.
  6. Shapira NA, Lessig MC, Goldsmith TD, et al. Problematic internet use: Proposed classification and diagnostic criteria. Depression and Anxiety. 2003;17(4):207-16.

Heavy television viewing among teens increases risk of depression later in life

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Teenagers who watch a large amount of television are significantly more likely to become depressed later in life according to a longitudinal study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The 2009 study titled Association Between Media Use in Adolescence and Depression in Young Adulthood was conducted by Brian A. Primack, MD, EdM, MS, Brandi Swanier, BA, Anna M. Georgiopoulos, MD, Stephanie R. Land, PhD, and Michael J. Fine, MD, MSc

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Objective and Methodology

These researchers sought to assess the association between media exposure in adolescence and depression in young adulthood. They used a nationally representative sample – the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) – to investigate the relationship between electronic media exposure in 4142 adolescents who were not depressed at baseline and development of depression seven years later. Initially, the teens were asked how many hours they had spent watching television each week. They reported an average of 2.3 hours. Seven years later (at an average age of 21.8), participants were screened again. More than 300, 7.4 percent had developed symptoms consistent with depression.

Findings: More TV Increases Risk of Depression

“Those reporting more television use had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily television use. In addition, those reporting more total media exposure had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily use.”

While the researchers did not find a consistent relationship between development of depressive symptoms and exposure to pre-recorded video, computer games, or radio, they did find a statistically significant correlation at the 95% confidence level with television.

Interestingly, they also found that men were more likely than women to develop depression given the same total media exposure.

How Television May Cause Depression

Results suggest that media exposure may influence development of depression through a variety of factors. Some are related to the medium itself, others to content.

Relating to the medium itself, the researchers theorize that:

  • Time spent passively watching television could displace more positive interaction with family and friends
  • The audio and video could energize the senses in ways that contribute to poor sleep.
  • Excessive viewing could interfere with development of good thinking skills, and potentially contribute to cognitive distortions.

Regarding potential links related to content, the researchers point to facts such as:

  • Large amounts of advertising which may present adolescents with unattainable images
  • Role models that exhibit high degrees of risk taking behaviors
  • Stereotypical characters that may affect self-image
  • Anxiety-provoking shows.

Why is this so crucial? The authors point to other studies that show:

  • Depression is the leading cause of nonfatal disability worldwide.1
  • Because onset of depression is common in adolescence and young adulthood,2, 3 it coincides with a pivotal period of physical and psychological development.
  • Depression can lead to poorer psychosocial functioning, lower life and career satisfaction, more interpersonal difficulty, greater need for social support, other related psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, and increased risk of suicide.4, 5

My Take

It should be noted that since this study was conducted four years ago, television viewing among teens has increased. Many now use it as a background medium while multitasking. Through multitasking, teens are now exposed to an average of 10.5 hours of media content per day – up TWO HOURS per day from an average of 8.5 hours when these researchers conducted their study.

To be sure, not all of those 10.5 hours are spent on television, but the trend is alarming – especially when you conider that internet addiction (IA) is also becoming a problem among teens and that IA has also been linked to depression. (See previous post.) This could help explain, in part, a 400% increase in the use of antidepressants reported by the CDC.

In my next post, I’ll explore the relationship between multitasking and depression.

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  1. Lopez AD, Mathers CD, Ezzati M, Jamison DT, Murray CJ. Global and regional burden of disease and risk factors, 2001: systematic analysis of population health data. Lancet. 2006;367(9524):1747–1757. [PubMed]
  2. Blazer DG, Kessler RC, McGonagle KA, Swartz MS. The prevalence and distribution of major depression in a national community sample: the National Comorbidity Survey. Am J Psychiatry. 1994;151(7):979–986. [PubMed]
  3. Commission on Adolescent Depression and Bipolar Disorder . Depression and bipolar disorder. In: Evans DL, Foa EB, Gur RE, et al., editors. Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders: What We Know and What We Don’t Know: A Research Agenda for Improving the Mental Health of Our Youth. Oxford University Press; New York, NY: 2005.
  4. Paradis AD, Reinherz HZ, Giaconia RM, Fitzmaurice G. Major depression in the transition to adulthood: the impact of active and past depression on young adult functioning. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2006;194(5):318–323. [PubMed]
  5. Reinherz HZ, Giaconia RM, Hauf AM, Wasserman MS, Silverman AB. Major depression in the transition to adulthood: risks and impairments. J Abnorm Psychol. 1999;108(3):500–510. [PubMed]

Internet addiction and depression

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Is there a link between internet addiction and depression? I have often observed that Internet addicts seem less sociable than others – more focused on electronic interaction than physical interaction. I wonder if electronic interaction is somehow less satisfying emotionally and if that could contribute to depression.

The need for personal connection is one of our deepest needs. But connecting online lacks many of the elements that make physical interaction so satisfying. You can’t see people smile, shake their hands, or hug them. And you can’t smell the cookies they baked for you. Electronic interaction lacks many of the positive aspects of physical interaction. It is better than nothing, but a poor surrogate for the real thing. The electronic interaction, while good in itself, underscores physical disconnectedness.

Recently, I came across articles on two trend studies that brought this issue into focus.

  • The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reported a 400% increase in the use of anti-depressant drugs in the period between 1988-94 and 2005-08.
  • The Pew Foundation reported exponential growth in Internet social networking during the latter period. See chart below.

Social networking site use by age group

So I looked for research to see if these two things were, in fact, related.

In 2010, the journal Psychopathology published a study called, “The Relationship between Excessive Internet Use and Depression: A Questionnaire-Based Study of 1,319 Young People and Adults” by C. M. Morrison and H. Gore from the University of Leeds in the UK.

The authors studied the link between Internet addiction (AI) and depression among 1,319 respondents. They found a close relationship between AI tendencies and depression, such that IA respondents were more depressed. Among their conclusions:

Those who regard themselves as dependent on the Internet report high levels of depressive symptoms. Those who show symptoms of IA are likely to engage proportionately more than the normal population in sites that serve as a replacement for real-life socialising.

“The internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side,” said lead author of the report Dr. Catriona Morrison. “There is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities.”

“Our research indicates that excessive internet use is associated with depression, but what we don’t know is which comes first – are depressed people drawn to the internet or does the internet cause depression? What is clear, is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies.”

In 2007, Psychopathology published another study called “Depression and Internet Addiction in Adolescents” by J.H. Ha, S.Y. Kim, S.C. Bae, H. Kim, M. Sim, and I.K. Lyoo, and S.C. Cho.

This group studied 452 Korean adolescents. First, they evaluated subjects for their severity of Internet addiction. Second, they investigated correlations between Internet addiction and depression, alcohol dependence and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. They also found that Internet addiction was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Their data suggests the need to evaluate underlying depression in the treatment of Internet-addicted adolescents.

This year, Psyopathology also published another study on the subject. It was a survey of previously published academic research called, “The Association between Pathological Internet Use and Comorbid Psychopathology: A Systematic Review.” The authors of this study were: V. Carli, T. Durkee, D. Wasserman, G. Hadlaczky, R. Despalins, E. Kramarz, C. Wasserman, M. Sarchiapone, C.W. Hoven, R Brunner and M. Kaess.

They evaluated all of the studies about pathological Internet use (PIU) on MEDLINE, PsycARTICLES, PsychINFO, Global Health, and Web of Science. They found relationships to depression, anxiety, symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and hostility/aggression.

The majority of research was conducted in Asia. Of the twenty articles they reviewed, 75% reported significant correlations of PIU with depression, 57% with anxiety, 100% with symptoms of ADHD, 60% with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and 66% with hostility/aggression. The strongest correlations were observed between PIU and depression; the weakest was hostility/aggression.

 My Take

Could it be that lonely, depressed people self-medicate by socializing on the Internet to make themselves feel less lonely? In the end, do they only makes themselves more depressed by isolating themselves from family, friends and support networks?

The advertising industry trade journal Ad Age reports that:

Time spent with computers has tripled over the past decade among kids age 8 to 18. The bulk of this group’s time is spent on social media, followed by games, video sites and instant messaging. The average kid packs a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into a daily seven and a half hours of media exposure.

Facebook may be a great way to stay in touch with friends, but it’s not quite the same thing as a hug. An email to your brother or sister isn’t quite the same thing as having dinner with him or her. An online role playing game with someone in another state isn’t quite the same thing as a pickup game of basketball down at the local playground. Or playing catch with your dad. Or baking with your mom and watching the smiles as an apple pie comes out of the oven.

An electronic social life is at best a surrogate experience for personal connection. Just like the personal handwritten letters that people used to write, electronic interaction often results in bittersweet feelings: sweet because you’re connecting, bitter because you’re still apart.

This can lead to emotional burn out for Internet addicts. They find themselves going online more and more to get the same sense of connection they once felt. But the emotional mailbox is empty. The increased time they spend online simply underscores their separation from family and friends. Kind of depressing, huh? The answer may not be in pills. It may be in logging onto life.

The Internet and National Referendums

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For nearly 40 years, the Gallup organization has been polling Americans about various political reforms. This morning, Gallup released another poll that showed 68% of Americans favor a national referendum on an issue if enough voters sign a petition to request a vote on it. Three Americans favored this proposal for every one who was against it. (See below.)

Many U.S. states allow voters to decide key issues directly rather than have elected representatives decide all issues. Sadly, the notion has yet to gain traction on a national level even though Internet technology would make national referendums both practical and easy.

I can envision a site called USreferendums.gov that would allow voters to sign petitions. Voter registration boards in each state could issue unique user IDs and passwords for the site to keep zealots from logging on multiple times under different names.

Any petition that got the support of, let’s say, 10% of each state’s registered voters, could be put on the next federal election ballot.

Referendums could reduce the influence of lobbyists.

In this way, we might pass legislation that represents the public’s interest rather than special interests. After several mass murders late last year, bills were introduced to ban assault rifles and high capacity ammo clips. Another proposal called for more thorough background checks on gun purchasers. Both had overwhelming public support. And both went down in flames. A national referendum on these issues would have had a much different outcome.

So here we are, Bubba. We let psychos buy assault rifles to kill children. But we don’t give citizens the right to vote on proposals that could save them. What’s wrong with this picture? Perhaps its time for a national referendum on national referendums.

To be clear, I’m not proposing that we cut legislators out of the loop. Someone still needs to formulate legislation.

The biggest issue I see: How do we determine which petitions get put on USreferendums.gov?

Regarding this last point, I modestly suggest that when public opinion polls differ from legislative outcomes by a wide margin, it’s time for a public referendum. This would keep everybody honest, make government more responsive, and still allow legislators to handle the vast majority of work.

The Internet can now provide the same kind of check-and-balance, watchdog function over government that the professional press does. There’s an opportunity here to make democracy more democratic. We should take it. In my opinion, we should begin a series of national referendums on important issues when Congress fails to represent wishes of the public.

The iPad and Physical Fitness

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Any time a new communication technology is introduced, people rapidly discover new uses for it that may go far beyond the inventor’s intentions. I’m reading a Bill Bryson book called At Home. It contains an anecdote about the early days of the telephone. The telephone, according to Bryson, was originally intended to be a means of rapidly distributing weather, emergency and other time-sensitive information. The thought that people would use it to converse with family and friends seemed wild and implausible since you could talk to them in person.

Likewise, I remember back in the early days of personal computing in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, clients having heated debates about why someone would want a personal computer. Some people actually thought housewives would want them to store and organize recipes. Other people thought kids might find them useful for playing educational games. Their potential as a serious business tool was seriously underestimated.

Thirty years later, along comes this thing called the Apple iPad. It’s diminutive form factor made it look like a more portable laptop or an smartphone on steroids. I bought one and quickly became addicted to reading e-books. At first, I rationalized it based saving trees.

Three years after purchasing my first iPad, I now look at it in an entirely new way – as a physical fitness tool.  Last year, I had bypass surgery. If you’ve never had your chest cracked, all I can say is, “Avoid it at all costs.” But I digress. During my recuperation from the surgery, I bought an exercise bike because I had too many accidents on street and mountain bikes. I also reasoned that an exercise bike would remove weather as an excuse to avoid a workout. (Houston has two seasons: summer and August. The heat and humidity here can be daunting at times.)

I quickly found that boredom was my biggest exercise challenge. Riding for an hour a day gets old quickly, but that’s what it takes to get in shape and stay in shape.

iPad to the rescue. Now, when I get on the bike, I flip my iPad case over the console. During my hour-long ride, I can answer emails, catch up with friends on Linked-in, read e-books, or watch a video on Amazon Prime or Netflix. For the last few weeks, I’ve been watching a series of fascinating TED Talks on Netflix.

At the end of an hour, I’ve pedaled between 20 and 25 miles. Dull, repetitive drudgery has turned into fascinating intellectual exploration with some of the brightest minds in the world.

Some people may say, “You could always watch TV on your exercise bike.” That’s true, but it’s not quite the same thing. With the iPad, I can start the video at the start of the ride. I also get a lot more variety. If I don’t feel like TED, I watch a documentary, or catch up on my reading.

Now here’s the best part. I’ve had the bike almost exactly a year. During that time, I’ve pedaled almost 6000 miles! That’s across the country and back again! And I, Robert Rehak, have lost 80 pounds and eight inches from my waistline! I now weigh what I did when I graduated from college and was playing competitive sports. I tell people that I feel forty again. I met a college classmate not long ago and he told me I looked exactly the same as when we went to Northwestern together (except for the gray hair).

The transformation has been remarkable. I didn’t lose the 80 pounds because of exercise or nutrition apps on the iPad. I lost them because the iPad kept me interested in working out.

Curiously, I find another factor at work, too. I find that when I get lost in a good book or video while riding that it diverts my attention. I forget how tired I am and start pedaling faster. Yesterday, I averaged almost 25 MPH while watching a series of TED Talks on the application of mathematics to everyday life.

Hey, 80 pounds is all the math I need. Thank you, Steve Jobs, wherever you are. I doubt this is what he had in mind when he and the good people at Apple conceived the iPad. It’s simply a side effect. An unintended consequence. And I love it.

The Internet and Free Speech

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The Internet brought self-publishing to the common man. That may have done more for free speech than the First Amendment. But all that unfettered freedom has a dark side, too. The freedom to lie. The freedom to libel. The freedom to make false allegations. The freedom to bully. The freedom to invade privacy. And the freedom to destroy competitors, ex-lovers, neighbors with yapping dogs, 14-year-old girls having bad-hair days, the cop who gave you a ticket for doing 90 in a school zone, and the overworked waitress who took too long to refill your iced tea.

Having fun yet? Oh, I forgot the freedom to do it all anonymously.

As a writer, I’ve always believed that Free Speech is the most important freedom Americans have. But I’ve also come to believe in recent years that the greatest threat to Free Speech is people who lie and libel with impunity online.

shutterstock_125458373Before the “irresponsibles” spoil it for all of us, we need to draw a line in the sand, Dude. That line is Truth with a capital T. Yes, I know Truth isn’t always black or white. But let’s leave the shades of gray out of this for the moment and consider only one of the extremes. Should anyone have the right to damage you with blatant, outright lies?

Any reasonable person would take a New York nanosecond to shout “NO!” But sadly the answer is “YES” – at least in the free-fire zone called the Internet.

Have you ever been caught in the cross-fire? Sorry, Bucky. You’re collateral damage to a higher cause – Free Speech.

If you want to read a real-life horror story filled with the sad sagas of dozens of victims, read a book called Violated Online: How Online Slander Can Destroy Your Life by Steven Wyer. It should be required reading for anyone with Internet access and a voter registration card. That includes judges and legislators.

Mr. Wyer’s sobering book contains numerous examples of how people’s lives have been ruined by a perfect storm of new, converging laws, technologies and trends, such as:

  • Anti-SLAPP statutes
  • Internet anonymity
  • Social networks that facilitate viral communications
  • Anonymous text bots that relentlessly record the location of every piece of information on the Internet whether it is true or false.
  • Online information archives, such as the Library of Congress, that dutifully store false allegations
  • Search engines that lead people directly to those lies for decades

Want to see how easy it is to damage someone? Just visit any complaint site like RipoffReport.com, AbusiveMen.com, PissedOff.com or DatingPsychos.com. Anyone can start a vicious rumor about someone he or she doesn’t like, such as the poor kid in class who wore mismatching socks, a competitor, or political opponent. The bigger the lie, the faster and farther it spreads. And once it’s gone viral, it’s impossible to stop.

Want to see how long you can keep the fun going? Read the story on Snopes.com about an email circulating since 2005. It lists compensation details of CEOs of major charities. Only one problem: the information is bogus. Who knows how much suffering this email caused by diverting badly needed contributions from those in need!

In Texas, at least one politician has already used the state’s new anti-SLAPP statute as a shield to attack private citizens. Texas courts have upheld the politician’s right to do so. And the Texas governor vetoed an ethics bill last month that contained a provision that would have made it more difficult for politicians to attack private citizens anonymously.

A growing body of research underscores how psychology as well as technology can fuel the persistence of misinformation and “belief echoes.” Most people tend to continue believing misinformation even after it has been proven untrue. Most often, attempts to expose lies actually strengthen belief in the misinformation.

The Internet is like an echo chamber. When social networks pick up the news and the Library of Congress archives all the Tweets about you, you suddenly become a Number One search result on Google, sentenced to a virtual pillory for life without due process.

Your phone stops ringing. Your friends shun you. Even your dog pees on your rug. It’s game over, Bubba. So what if they lied! They got to vent.

Want to clean up this mess? A good start would be to teach kids NEVER to trust people using pseudonyms online. Perhaps someday we could even make the use of online pseudonyms illegal. If people fear they might be held accountable for damaging lies, they might think twice before publishing them to the world.