Are we fictionalizing too much of our lives?

A while back, I came across the above slide set by Jenka taking the view that we are living and telling our own transmedia narratives, not just engaging with the ones created for us by others.

Yesterday I read a post on HBR that takes a look into what happens to us as we start to live our lives more and more online, specific to the economy and our personal spending habits. One of the paragraphs in it stood out in particular:

They call it "real" estate for a reason, yet many of us approached first, second, and vacation homes as though they were virtual property, castles we built in the sky. Debt stopped scaring us because money had stopped being real. The "correction" that has followed is surely very painful, but only as painful as the buying binge that preceded it was unhinged from reality.

I think the author has a good point here. When we don't feel that things are real, or are immediate and close, we're not as afraid of them.

Over time, we've pushed our relationship with managing our finances further and further away from us. We've moved from spending cash to writing checks to using plastic to clicking a mouse or touching a screen. We used to have to record our own deposits and transactions as they happened, but now we turn to online banking to take care of these things for us.

When you take cash out of your wallet and hand it to someone, you physically see and feel your money leaving your hands. When you had to write checks, you saw how much money left your account immediately as you recorded the transaction in the register and subtracted it from the account's total.

With the move to using credit and debit cards for most of our purchases and now paying by clicking a mouse or touching a screen, we don't have that immediate sense of how much we're spending. We want or need what's in front of us and our mind is in a million different places so we just swipe/click/touch and move on.

Through the combination of these things, our relationship with money has changed. It's not as real and immediate as it once was. If you're not diligent about watching your finances, it is far too easy to spend all that you have and then some.

As I thought about this more, I see this being a reality in other parts of our lives too.

I think a large part of the problem with obesity and several of the health issues facing the U.S. population has to do with our disconnection from our food. We don't make as much of what we eat as we used to and because of this, we don't see exactly what ingredients are going into it.

If we had to watch some of the things we eat being prepared, or even further, were given a precise recipe and told to make them as they're sold to us, I bet we'd have a lot different feeling about wanting to eat them.

I think this stuff is why there is a resurgance of interest in making things. There is something in us that wants to be more connected to the world around us and to each other. The more we put electronic and virtual things in between us and that innate part of us, the stronger the call is to do something to break it.

I think this also points to a way to fix parts of our lives that we want to improve. We need to start making things more real. If you want to get out of debt, start using cash instead of plastic. If you want to lose weight or imporove your health, start making more of what you eat. If you want to improve your relationships, starting spending more time with people in person. Of course there is a bit more to it than this, but the idea of making things more real is a strong move in the right direction.

Anyway... I'll stop there. Just wanted to share a train of thought that made me pause and wonder if we are creating too much fiction in our own lives...

Comments

[Bud Caddell]

Paul, great post.

Someone asked me the other day about technology's ability to change behavior, and I can never think of a better example than the credit card. It has radically changed our notions of what money is and how it is to be spent/saved/abstracted. Turns out that if you take away the plastic, people actually eat healthier, too. Consumption becomes conscious again.

I know the recession just ended, but this feels like the 1920's to me. Or the Great Gatsby, since I didn't actually exist in 1920. It feels like we're wearing the affectations of who we want to be, the world we want to live in, and while we do so, this rising tend of reality is coming to slap us in the face. The next 100 years will no doubt be a tumultuous time in America, if not abroad, and we do not seem to be gearing up for it.

[Andylemay]

Excellent post. Worth multiple reads. There was a book published a few years ago (by O'Reilly, somewhat ironically) that might be of interest to those who want to explore these concepts: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526801/

[paul isakson]

Thanks, Bud. Agree that we're in for some interesting times as we continue to learn to adjust to the new pace of the world and all that this brings.

Andy, thank you. And thanks for sharing the link to the book. Going to check that one out for sure.

[Michael]

Paul, this really resonated with me. I've made a concerted effort to remove myself from social environments like Facebook and Twitter to try to get back to the real part of my life like my family and being "present" in my own life. And it has had a very tangible and meaningful impact.

To further the credit card insight, I've done some work with a major credit card client and their research shows that people spend more when the pay using the "tap" credit card readers. Upon hearing this I realized how much I love the ease of taping to pay and how the speed of it makes me feel like the interaction was literally less real. There is just something so satisfying in life to just "push the button" and move on. But it can be equally satisfying to put in some serious sweat and tears to get something done.

[jim]

I agree with you. Step forward to start making things more real we have to start having Self awareness.

[Mariethetwit]

Firstly, what an outstanding presentation by Jenka, so thank you for introducing me to that.

Secondly, I'm not sure that technology detaching humanity from reality is a new idea, but the context you put it in, that of storytelling and our over-indulgence in narratives, is fascinating.

There's a book by Donald Miller http://www.amazon.co.uk/Million-Miles-Thousand-Years-Learned/dp/0785213066 which explores this idea and suggests that if we want a more interesting life, we should create a better story! Personally I'm not sure that crafting a narrative out of our lives is ultimately ever going to work, not least because the aspect and perspective of the 'narrator' (i.e. you/other people) tends to change with the wind.

But for brands, knowing the deep level at which people engage with narratives is essential.

[paul isakson]

Thanks for the comments, Michael and Jim.

Marie - Thank you as well. I have read Miller's book a few times... I think you noted my presentation at Planning-ness in a post on your blog? No matter...

Not sure if you've read Miller's book, but his point is not that we're crafting a narrative out of our lives in the traditional sense of writing a story but that if we look at life as a series of stories that support a bigger purpose for our lives (a bigger story), then we may open the door to living a better life.

His point is based on the idea that we're all playing a role in a master story (where God is the author from the beginning of time) and that if we want to have a life that inspires others to tell stories about us within that story, then we need to do things that are worth talking about.

He also says that the people who have the grandest stories are the people who do completely selfless things in the face of insurmountable odds, even when that means creating more difficult situations for themselves.

Anyway... I enjoyed your post on "story planning." Glad to find another person interested in the role of story in what we do.

[Mariethetwit]

Ah - indeed, you introduced me to Miller's book - I bought it promptly after reading your presentation and getting inspired. Apologies for the oversight; I am so engaged with storytelling and reading so much on the theme right now that I am beginning to lose track of my sources...

I understand the master story idea, and I think that whether or not you engage with it in a religious context it is still a useful grounding device. I'm introducing some planning tools to my current agency based on the idea of an underlying brand narrative that supports multiple, multi-faceted stories (i.e. individual campaigns, social objects, or simply conversations). The underlying purpose you mention on my blog is a crucial part of this but I think it's also about having an overarching structure, or 'rules of engagement' that define the operating world (or 'setting') that promote 'suspension of disbelief' and entry into the brand universe.

I will eagerly await your additions to the body of thinking on storytelling. It's such a rich and vital area for brands, and for people.