I'm going to set up on my soap box now and you can ignore me if you want, but this is something I have noticed developing it drives me crazy.
Google Wave.
Not the program/software/communication tool/whatever the hell you want to call it, itself. More the reason we need/want it. I keep reading things like "real time communication" and "live collaboration" and while these things are fabulous for an Internet option they are things we can experience everyday of our lives. Albeit not with people on the other side of the planet, but I feel these things are making us miss those experiences that we could be having everyday.
How often do we miss what is happening in our communities or even our own homes because we are wrapped up in the news from around that world that the interweb has been streaming live into our laptops and desktops? We know more about the other side of the world than the person that sits next to us on the bus, at work, or while out at dinner. Every child knows how to turn on a computer and chat and update facebook, but can any of them write an actual letter or form a reasonable argument for real life. Possibly. However, I am finding the more I interact with people the more they tell me "it's on my blog" or "you can see it on my facebook" or "did you see my tweet about that". Every time someone says those things to me I want to scream, "I'm talking to you right now. How about you tell me right now." Instead I make a note to check out their page and read about it later and then send comments with all my questions and concerns. While, this seems like it is saving the world a lot of time (which don't get me wrong, I think it is) what is it costing us in human interaction? Are we creating a new human race that can only communicate via written word and has no idea how to communicate in a one-on-one live fashion?
I don't live or die by my blog as you can tell by the number of times I actually update this thing. I know its an important tool and provides me a way to reach people I might never have seen before, but I still prefer getting that one on one real human interaction you can only have by sitting down in the same room with that person and actually listening to them talk. I'll take the flying spittle that might ensue, or the stuttering, or awkward silence, as long as there is another human sitting in the room with me that might utter a few sentences in my direction and even listen to ramblings I spew.
All in all I prefer "real" human interaction to a computer interface, which is yet another reason I am bad at blogging.
3 comments:
I think you're justified in being upset about this. However, as an avid user of both facebook and Twitter I have to extol SOME of the better points of the services :-P
in my opinion, it's all about control, a virtue that is becoming increasingly important in a society where people don't really feel like they have any at all. Click an X to delete a person in a Catch-22-esque literary obliteration, block someone, etc. etc. On facebook and twitter, you can control to and with whom you are interacting rather than feeling like you are forced to talk to someone in front of your face.
What I think is funny, though, is the misprioritizing of information that occurs because of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Personally, even more than the inability to communicate face-to-face, it's irritating to know that any person you DO happen to talk to face to face will be more interested in something like the video of #JoeJonas dancing to Beyonce than they will be in something like pertinent current events.(E.g. AirFrance or Obama's foreign policy laid out in his recent Egyptian talks).
For me, Facebook and Twitter are two separate entities entirely; namely, a delineation between business and pleasure. I typically use facebook to communicate with friends from college(s), or work. Twitter, on the other hand, is used to expand creative juices and network with people in the culinary industry who might have leads on jobs or inspiration for new dishes. Google Wave, to me, is just a new Online Rolodex rather than a communication killer; If I don't have to spend 30 minutes tracking everyone down to figure out attendees to an outing, that's more time I can use to plan other things or talk to them once I am on said outing with said people.
So that's my two cents, but onviously I'm biased .. because, ya know, I'm writing my opinion to you on an electronic medium.
It makes me mad when people I know very well in real life aren't reading my blog, though. My friend Katie and I have totally opposite schedules and can never actually talk to each other, but I know she has the time to read my blog, and I'd certainly read hers if it existed. Yet when I get together with her, it's clear that she never touches the thing. Even though it's, like, the inanimate thing I love most in the world.
My best friend reads my blog and comments on it religiously, but she still likes to hear my stories in real life, because of course they're different with voice inflection and all that. And I think that's the way it should be.
ETL --
While I'm upset about these things it obviously doesn't upset me enough that I boycott them. I posted it on a blog and I check facebook almost every hour, and twitter is installed on my phone. I use them all, but I understand there is a time and place for both live interaction and online.
Evelynnash --
I love the voyeurism that blogging allows on my end. I mean I can read about anyone or anything I want and then choose to comment or just keep the knowledge to myself. Like yourself I also get a little upset when friends can't find the time to even look at my blog. It's not even like I update an insane number of times that they have to worry about keeping up. However, the few things I do post I put actual time and effort into and would like them to be appreciated.
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