Bill Tancer
203 pages
This was an absolutely fascinating book that caught my attention while walking through Borders the other day. I picked it up and was immediately thrown into the world of internet search results and they say about both our culture and our society today. There is an amazing amount of insight to be learned from our internet habits and author Bill Tancer shows us a glimpse of that reality.
Tancer takes us through the “dark underbelly” of the internet immediately as the first stop delving into the realm of “Porn, Pills and Casinos.” Tancer quotes the federal governments assertion that in 2006 the internet was 99% porn free, however his research proves otherwise.
The story of the underbelly of the Internet, our online vices, starts here, with our capacity to deny the truth. Sometimes we say what we mean, and sometimes we don’t, but actions always speak louder than words… There are more than fourty thousand adult sites in our database. That’s more than twice the number of all online retail sites that we track… No doubt driven by the proliferation of online video, the amount of time spent on adult sites is on the increase. On average, as of August 2007, Internet users spent six minutes and twenty-nine seconds on any adult site within the category, up 15% from two years prior, when the average time…was five minutes and thirty-eight seconds.
His research also shows daily trends of visits to adult websites with Friday being the highest, and Sunday being the lowest. (Craig Gross and xxxchurch.com also make a brief appearance in this chapter.)
Tancer takes us through our culture and the things that inspire us from dieting to celebrity worship to addiction to our greatest fears. One of Tancer’s most interesting observations is that people are now turning to the internet to have their biggest questions answered. Search terms for the things are considered taboo in society are on the rise as people begin to search out for answers in the privacy of their web browser. This has some startling implications for the church and how we continue to wrestle through the thoughts and ideas of community…
Perhaps my favorite part of this book was his discussion on how things trend towards massive movements and followings based upon search data. He takes bands like Fall Out Boy and Arctic Monkeys and charts their progress towards superstardom from mere obscurity. It all happened because of their viral presence on the Internet. This makes you wonder how the church can become more viral in the internet scene and how some of his research can be incorporated into our own understanding of culture and practice.
Related posts:
