A hypothesis about social media
Indulge me, and I promise I won’t start calling myself a social media expert.
I’ve noticed that some media improves when you share it. Actually, I’ve noticed this about television. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch the first episode of the West Wing, say, or Friday Night Lights. If I’m watching it with someone who has never seen it before, I enjoy myself. On my own, I’d be bored.
Also: I am a compulsively social reader. By which I mean, I have to read all the best parts out loud to you. This is one of the things that is great about Twitter, or Facebook, or the “email to a friend” buttons on newspaper websites, right? I can pester you even when you’re out of earshot, and that makes reading more fun.
Speaking of which, via Mathew Ingram, you should read this review of Timothy Ferriss’s new book. Here’s a teaser:
Mr. Ferriss offers advice about so many disparate things — not simply losing weight and building muscle and improving sex and living forever, but learning to hold your breath longer than Houdini (!) and hit baseballs like Babe Ruth (!!) — that paging through “The 4-Hour Body” is like reading the sprawling menu in a dubious diner, quite certain the only thing you’d dare order is the turkey club.
And that’s not even the best part.
