Extension activity: Andrew Keen: Digital Vertigo interview with Web Pro News

Andrew Keen is the author of a book called Digital Vertigo.  In it he argues that web 2.0, far from enabling a more positive representation of us, is in actual fact reducing us to 'digital narcissists', suffering with excessive love of ourselves, who have become too preoccupied with broadcasting ourselves.  

He argues that social media, or the 'social internet as he refers to it as, amplifies, perpetuates and exaggerates narcissism in all of us.  

We have retreated from the act of reading, watching more traditional media such as film and television in favour of becoming pre-occupied with broadcasting ourselves and our lives online.  This, he suggests, doesn't reflect well on us as individuals or as a species.  

He is concerned that the collectivism and publicness of the modern world is resulting in us all losing something central and important in our lives.  He argues that the more we self-promote online the more we become products ourselves, and he sees that as a real tragedy.  

How do you feel about this?  Ending your essay with a reference to Andrew Keen would pose some interesting questions, and offers an alternative view to both Buckingham and Gauntlett.