There was an interesting story in the Leader Post (A3, Feb 24/05) titled “It’s all about me baby”. The story first details the recent hacking of Paris Hilton’s electronic organizer, which has ultimately led to hundreds of celebrity phone numbers and email addresses being leaked to the Internet (and Xtina Aguilera still doesn’t return my phone calls). Also, and to little surprise, the article reports that “the bigger picture, quite literally, was that every photograph archived on Hilton’s T-Mobile Sidekick was of herself.”

The article goes on to implicate Paris as evidence of the “narcissism afflicting the Internet generation.” “From blogging to vanity surfing, technology is helping to inflate a new generation of egos of magnitudes never seen before.”

But what I think is more important here is the author’s notion around ideological systems and how reading and writing blogs can potentially entrench authors into shared, immovable beliefs. “News and gossip is obtained from websites that conform to their own view of the world, reinforcing the belief that their ideologies are the right ones.”

See cartoon reflecting that blogging is indicative of the ‘me’-generation. :-)

I recently read a related and timely post from Xplanazine titled “The “Bambi Effect” — Why We Hate It When Cute Creatures (or Beliefs) Are Threatened or Harmed“. It reads, “Once we become aware of how and why we believe what we believe, and once we become conscious of how we interpret our perceptions, we can start to question each cognitive step along the meaning-making road.”

It’s interesting to think, myself, of the blogs that I read and how their authors often convey very similar thoughts, concerns, values, beliefs and humour. I should think, though, of the reasons that I choose these authors, and of the reasons I choose to ignore others.