Feedback frenzy
Perhaps it's self-flattery, but I'm wondering why everyone wants my opinion these days. Hardly a day goes by that I am not asked to share my judgment of some product, experience or person. The deep discount airport hotel where I bunked for a few hours between flights last month wants me to rate my room (the TV was broken and there was a faint odor of rotting cabbage). Amazon invites me to spout my opinions of books and to flag other people's reviews as "helpful" or not. Facebook lets me pretend to be a Roman emperor who sends posters to their fate with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. The Huffington Post inquires whether I find its religion essays "amazing," "inspiring," "hot" or "weird," while Delta Airlines wonders if I had a "satisfactory gate experience" in Denver and if the gate agent called me by name (wait, let me check my diary).
It is tempting to see this rush to solicit my views as a sign that megacorporations are finally getting serious about customer service, that someone at headquarters truly cares whether my hotel bed was comfortable, and that a Delta manager might actually call Denver to say, "His name is Tom Long. Don't forget next time." But somehow I doubt that. The constant badgering for my opinion seems less about service and more about sales. If I can be persuaded that someone cares what I think, I can be lulled into believing that I am rowing my little consumer boat with purpose and direction and that companies are carving out safe harbors for my whims. In fact I am being swept along a churning Niagara River of marketing ploys and corporate indifference. I'm grinning and flashing a thumbs up even as I plunge over the falls.
I wonder about the larger cultural meaning of being summoned to make flash judgments about everything from restaurant entrées to couples on Dancing with the Stars. How healthy can it be to think of life not as something to be lived and savored, but as a series of episodes that I am expected—and entitled—to rate up or down? Moreover, the cloak of anonymity on the Internet can summon our worst spirits. "Our waiter was a rude jerk. Fire him," posted a cranky diner. When CNN recently ran a moving feature about the personal life and struggles of one of America's most respected ministers, a reader commented, "Yawn. God is not real. Jesus is not real. This dude's whole life was based on a lie. Next story." Are we being turned into toddlers who dump our applesauce onto the floor, screaming, "Don't like! Don't like!"?
