Thursday, 21 June 2007
@ 1.11 pm
Communication Overload
It's almost the shortest day (tomorrow I think), and the combination of the rapid onset of winter, reaching the halfway mark of the coursework part of the programme, and my high levels of procrastination via internet, are combining to deliver me into not the greatest place. Which is a real pain, as everything was good just a few days ago. Ah well, they'll no doubt be all good again in just a few days.
But, while I'm in the right sort of headspace for this sort of thing, it has got me wondering about what does and does not belong on the internet, and how each of the multitude of forms of communication at my fingertips should best be used, and whether they should be used at all!
At last count, I have three active email addresses, one blog, a LiveJournal account, a Twitter account, a MySpace account, a Bebo account, a Facebook account, and a Last.fm account. I'm on ICQ, Skype, MSN Messenger and Gtalk. Along more traditional lines, I have a landline and a cell phone, although as I'm no longer working, I don't have a fax or an office phone. You could even send me a *gasp* letter, if you felt the need. Oh, and, failing all that, maybe even grabbing a coffee and having a chat would do the trick.
I don't think I'm missing anything above, although I didn't go into the fact that things like Facebook have multiple ways of contacting or "interacting" with people, so they count for more than just one entry, really. And I don't think I'm the most connected out of the people I know either!
Sometimes, when faced with all these ways of communicating with people, (oh, and when I say "communicating", I guess I'm including passive forms of communication where you tell the world about who you are and what you're doing, rather than only messages directed at specific people), I get the feeling you get when you walk into a room that's full of heaps of people you know from all the different parts of your life. That uncomfortable "who am I" feeling, when you suddenly realise that you're actually several different things to several different groups of people. And I wonder whether that's a good or a bad thing, whether there's a reason for that - should you keep all the bits separate?
Maybe the online personality, such that it is, is something that you develop through these sites. Are people really the way they say they are, online? Or does the slightly removed, almost anonymous effect mean that people develop a different identity when using a blog or a Facebook account? And does this online personality change from medium to medium? Are people different on MySpace to how they are on Twitter? (And while I'm here, one "blogs", right, so does that mean that one "twits"? Cos that, given some of the entries I've read, would be oh so appropriate.) Or perhaps you become like those people who seem to have sorted out their "photograph face", who have that smile that they use in all the photos that get taken of them that you never see them use at any other time? I know people who are totally not who they appear in real life when they appear online, whether that be a blog or otherwise, as I'm sure everyone does.
I'd love to know what effect on people's identity formation sites like these have had, whether they have an effect at all. Or perhaps not? Thoughts?
Then I begin to wonder whether any of it is worthwhile, or whether it's be a much better idea to cancel all the accounts and restrict myself to the odd email, a phone call or two from far flung places, letters (remember the joy of opening a letter, actually handwritten for you by someone?) and face to face only, so when I run into an old friend who I haven't seen in years, there really is a whole pile of stuff to talk about. Totally drop off the face of the earth, or the internet, to be more precise. (Kind of like how there are two types of traveller, the ones who you keep in touch with online all the time so it's really just like they've popped into the next room for a bit as opposed to travelling halfway round the world, and the ones who when they go away, they go away. I think my Dad falls into the second category, although I'm sure that's at least partly because he probably hasn't quite figured out how to use internet cafes yet.)
But would that just mean that you drift apart more? I guess, then, that another question to ask is how much more groups of friends stick together, or whether people now operate with a much wider group of friends and acquaintances now than they ever used to - what are the positive effects of all this sort of tech?
How has it changed how individuals conceptualise self? How has it changed how we all "stick together", as it were, in society? I know there'll be stuff out there written about it, books, articles, studies, documentaries… piles of the stuff, hours even, all available at a click of a button or a quick trip to the library. But I'm really not in the mood for reading or investigating, just for musing.
So, one thousand words written today, and none of them to do with either the budget or Fisher and Paykel Healthcare. What did procrastinators do before the internet?
(And then, just as I finish writing this blog, my cell phone alarm goes off to remind me that it's a friend's birthday. A friend in far away places, who I can send a quick message to say that I'm wishing him well precisely because of the forms of communication I've talked about above. And it reminds me that perhaps I think they are good things, when you get right down to it. Happy birthday Corey!)
As for the song of the week, the one that matches my current mood, (although not, I'll admit, the content of the blog) is Sting's Shape of my Heart. Not Damien Rice for a change, but really damn good, and this version is especially cool.
