Too much information

Immediately prior to writing this column, I ate a mandarin-flavoured "digestive" - Leone brand. I bought these from the local chemist about a week ago.

I was in the chemist at the time filling a prescription for some gout-prevention medication (I suffered a nasty attack over Christmas and don't want that happening again). While I was at the chemist I bought some shampoo and conditioner. VO5. For normal hair.

If you've read this far, I'm impressed. And also curious. Why in the world did you do that? Why did the banal minutiae of my daily life and personal details of my medical history engage your attention, even for a moment? I'm a technology columnist! Why do you care what brand or flavour of digestives I have on my desk?

I assume, of course, that you have no interest in such details at all. Or at least, I would have assumed that until Twitter came along.

Twitter, in case you're only now emerging from your cave, is a "micro-blogging" system, whereby people exchange messages of 140 characters or fewer, recounting whatever happens to be taking their interest at that moment. If you thought maintaining a publicly viewable weblog - recounting the details of everyday life for the world to see - was a strange thing to have taken off in popularity, wait until you meet micro-blogging.

Some samples of recent posts to Twitter (known as "tweets") from my friends and colleagues: "Powerpoint - so much fun ..." "In Gold-Class cinema waiting for Watchmen to start. Very excited!" "Stop. Dinnertime." "On today's agenda: writing galore. And getting that paper with the free PSB CD."

You see what I mean? My digestives story suddenly seems like a highlight, doesn't it? Three of the above examples were written by professional journalists. Guess which one wasn't? I'll bet you're wrong.

I blame whoever it was that said "Information wants to be free". Yes, I could go look up who said it, but I can't be bothered. My point is that maxim, and the mythos that has developed around it, has devalued information to the point where the mundane is inseparable from the profound - going to the effort of finding out who originated the offending phrase would raise that bit of information above the fray for a moment, and I don't want to give whoever it was the satisfaction.

"Information wants to be free" means that all information has equal value, equal importance, equal prominence. It means that a New York Times in-depth analysis of the global financial crisis is just as valuable as what British comedian Stephen Fry had for dinner the other night in Mexico. Which is
to say, neither has any value anymore.

I'm biased, of course, because I am someone who tries to make a living by generating words for people to read, and I'm seeing that profession become a hobby with alarming rapidity. "Information wants to be free" wasn't supposed to mean "information wants to be free of charge", but that has been its effect. Enough ranting. I want another mandarin-flavoured digestive, and my public wants to know about it.

Matthew JC. Powell is a reluctant Twitterer. Email him on mjcp@mac.com or follow his tweets @mjcp.