Yesterday morning I woke up, turned on my radio, and heard the news that Steve Jobs had died.
For me personally, Jobs brought the means of communicating in a futuristic manner to life for all of us, and because of that I will always admire and respect the work he achieved. But will I mourn him? I won’t – not in the traditional sense of the word. I didn’t know Jobs in any personal capacity, and I couldn’t tell you much about him. I think that mourning is about a profound sense of loss that comes from knowing that someone you love will never be in your life again. It’s that heartbreaking feeling that never quite leaves you, regardless of the time that passes.
Despite not being upset about Jobs, I did read some of what was written about him as the news sites splashed the story of his life and death. There were reports that people were posting messages to the outside of his house, photos of flowers being left outside Apple stores and quotes from Presidents and Prime Ministers about Jobs and his achievements. Was this activity – and therefore news coverage – in proportion to the situation? Not for any other former CEO of a company perhaps, but Jobs made sure he was Apple – and as anyone who’s lost their iPhone knows, we have an emotional attachment to the brand (even though it’s the content on the technology we are attached to, rather than the technology itself).
Additionally, if you looked on Twitter or Facebook on Thursday your timeline was probably much the same as mine. There were hundreds of messages posted by people writing things such as “RIP Steve”, and the outpouring of such plastic grief was unavoidable. Everyone wanted to show their respects to Jobs on their social network of choice. It was a technical version of the field of flowers outside Kensington Palace after Diana died in 1997. It’s testament to him and his work that so many people wanted to show their respect… but it’s also telling that showing this version of grief in an extremely public – yet disposable – manner is now the norm. Not only will people remember where they were when they found out Steve Jobs had died, they’ll also remember what they wrote on Twitter and how many retweets it got.
I’ve always believed – and this possibly old fashioned of me – that if something is close to your heart then you keep it there. This goes for grief, certainly, but also personal relationships and feelings. Facebook and Twitter is a hotbed of the emotionally immature who publically share their intimate feelings and semi-naked photographs as if to validate themselves and their lives.
Yet it’s not just the young and ignorant who no longer seem to have a line between what should be kept private and what is good to share publically. On the day of Steve Jobs’ passing Robert Scoble wrote an open letter to Tim Cook, apologising for giving him a “hard time” after the iPhone 4S launch, when Cook’s mind was clearly on the health of his predecessor. It’s not so much the apology that rankles, but the fact Scoble did it so publically. Would it not have meant more if it had been sent directly and therefore privately to Cook? Or was Scoble taking advantage of this “apology” to add to the content that creates his online social capital? Would he have bothered writing an apology for Cook’s eyes alone? It’s not exactly his style, is it?
Among all the many things we can learn from Steve Jobs is that sometimes keeping personal matters private – such as Jobs did with his illness – is not only appropriate, but necessary for ensuring that the edited, curated versions of our online selves do not take precedence over who we are and how we behave when we put the technology down.
Jobs remained dignified throughout his career, and this is something that Scoble – and many others who exist so publically online – can learn from.
This column originally appeared in New Media Age magazine.
