subject: More Connected Leads To More Isolated [print this page] More Connected Leads To More Isolated More Connected Leads To More Isolated
There is something happening in the emerging digital age that is profoundly affecting the way in which we socialize and communicate. It would be superfluous however to put any moral or value judgments on it, because short of the Armageddon it looks like that not only are these changes here to stay, they will become more and more entrenched in the future. The Web has forever changed the way in which we interact with each other, how we feel about ourselves, and not just affects our self-image but has given us an unprecedented tool to recreate ourselves.
At this point the amount of 'remote interaction' we engage in depends a lot on the proclivities of the individual. By remote interaction, I mean the use of a device between you and another individual to communicate. Perhaps the most ancient form of this is the letter, while the most common toddy is the telephone (or is it email?).
But new, remoter ways of social interaction are emerging, and they all point in their own crude and primitive way the ways in which we will be reinventing who we are in the future. One of the most popular is Facebook (or should I call it Farcebook or Ghostbook?). Some of my friends (who I feel I no longer really know) seem to haunt the place day and night, sending out quips about what they are eating for dinner and only posting their most flattering pictures, or mostly those from when they were young. Remoter still and the ultimate replacement for the silly Facebook will be virtual worlds, brilliant extensions of what we are now seeing in programs like Second Life and in dozens of online games.
Despite my implicit criticism, I'm not really judging. All I'm saying is that in a future where you are constantly striving to create ideal or fantasy versions of you, you may very well become extremely confused about who you really are.
