Angst in Modern Modes of Connecting

No longer do we have to go out to see a movie, concert or game... or go to a conference/convention, church or civic meeting to meet people for business or social. With our cell or PDA we can be in touch wherever and whenever we may be on foot or wheel. With the current bandwidth speeds for streaming AV we can all do an average lifetimes worth of traveling the world in a weekend.

With all the latest greatest techno com gizmos it seems we can do everything and anything at the flick of a wrist and push of a button. Yet despite all of the many convenient and more direct routes in which to connect to one another and the world at large, many of us feel disconnected/disenfranchised. Without a doubt technology has brought us closer together and yet in some ways further apart. A few causes come to mind but i'd like to check first with my fellow ATS techgurus and psychonauts on their opinions.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/33b55211d60d.jpg[/atsimg]
...we've come a long way in mobile communication

I was originally going to name the thread "...communication" vs "...connecting" but then i realized that the deeper purpose to communication is to make a connection... which i believe our current tools enable us now to achieve. Though in many ways we haven't made the connection with others we have been longing for and are still in virtual community limboland, treading cyberwater in the digitalhemisphere, stuck in a perpetual state of "...connecting".

[edit on 15-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Well - that is why I have rejected many of the "modern" modes of connecting with other people.

While I have obviously embraced forums such as ATS for disucssing/debating topics with like minded individuals - and for keeping up with the latest cutting edge news - I still reject Social Networking, Twits, Instant Messaging, and even really the Cell Phone.

Now I own a cell phone, but I have almost a pathological dislike of the device and always opt for a more face to face level of communication - and when that is impossible I use video calling over the web.

While many might think my ways are unusually luddite - I find that this rather strict protocol not only removes endless and uneccesary wasted time and distraction, but also more firmly reinforces those discussions and relationships that I do have with friends, associates, and family.

I know it keeps me much more sane and grounded than I would be otherwise.

Truth be told - I love the potential of Social Networking for reconnecting with Friends and forming grassroots groups of like minded individuals - but as an actual method of communication it is a non starter for me.

The worrying this is that society today EXPECTS us to be slaves of technology and modern communication. They expect all of us to always have a mobile phone nearby and an email.
I am always for progress but not when it turns us into antisocial beings when we were designed as social creatures.
I do hope one day we all realise how pointless is it to live under constant stress.

Almost all of us have spoken and unspoken rules and preferences to how accessible we want to be... as this relates to our modern era of communication such boundaries aren't always so clear...

Our offline reality often doesn't fit or match our online lives, in many career situations one is forced to adapt and make huge personal sacrifices.

To maintain a corporate competitive edge, there has been a trend in replacing support staff with laptops... which they send home with their most "productive" employees... which has irreversibly erased the line between work and home. With salaries replacing an hourly wage, the work week knows no end. I have heard of people working up to 60-80 hour weeks. To make up for being absent in their domestic life... they hire someone to parent their kids, walk their dog, bring them groceries, deliver their dry cleaning... all in pursuit of ego/glory/status and at the same time driven by fear that they will be let go in the next layoff.

It's not just the yuppies that are feeling the pressure to conform to these modern modes of connecting but just about everyone else as well. Along with all of the efficiency comes with even higher expectations/demands on one's productivity ... even grade schoolers and teachers are feeling it.
So now naturally due to the lack of energy and time to devote to ones social life people turn to these devices to introduce them to like minded people... and as we've seen many tools and services are more then happy to do so.

Case in point, i have grown to despise twitter and anything like it, such as the central feature to facebook the "wall" ... all similar to cell-texting... puts people's trivial self-absorption on stage, the narcissistic atmosphere these devises encourage really make me

Here's a insightfully funny vid that gives some light to what i'm referring to:


I had a related experience with a prospective business partner this past fall, we were driving around the city for weeks looking at vacant warehouses, and every 5-15 minutes he had his face glued to his blackberry. After the first day of this, needless to say it was pissing me off, it was as if i was competing with this random textings for his undivided attention. I could even see half of the time he was listening to me he had some other conversation going on in his head. After a couple days of this i got in his face over it and he explained that his fiancée was a "little" obsessive and possessive... i said in reply, you mean to say "insanely so"? He reluctantly agreed but felt powerless to do anything about it. Turns out that the bulk of their dialog was twitter-like shorthand texting and only a small fraction of his total exchanges were of any real significance. Once i understood his predicament, i felt sorry for him... more like pity actually. Talk about having a "monkey on your back" with "ball and chain".

In sum, these are some of the ways in which people get turned off and on to these new ways of sharing their lives.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

I heard on the news the report about how Facebook makes people more immune to suffering of others. I think maybe that has something to do with it. I mean, so much information about people that we know is broadcast to us at once that we don't really think of people so individually.

It's kind of weird. I mean, also, when I'm on Facebook or AIM I'm usually doing a lot of things. Photograzing, on ATS, browsing things, whatever. So my attention isn't really focused on the person or people that I'm communicating with.

Most of the conversations i witness on these social networks are topical/shallow, which can't be blamed on the networks. They are only the glue/conduits that enable these exchanges to take place. For me it reconfirms that most people are shallow simpletons and are drawn to light subject matters that revolve around their indulgences.

The same can be said for some of the insensitivity we see. The medium allows us the freedom to express our selves more fully with more honesty. Someone who in face to face debate with another will more likely hold back their true feelings or thoughts on a matter for fear of backlash. With the safety of a computer screen as a buffer in between, people feel more "immune" to the attacks to and from others. In my opinion this is for the most part a good thing, where it gets out of hand is when people attack one another more then the topic/issue at hand.

On the higher road they can be used to champion social causes, and just as well the opposite is true. With this new found freedom of expression comes more risk/vulnerability and responsibility. Boundaries are in question as they get challenged by "friends"... and in turn one has to question the merits of the term in use online.

The following parodies put some of this into perspective:

If Twitter were human, what kind of a person would it be? And, more importantly, would you befriend such a person? Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum has an opinion about what she dubbed the "Age of Oversharing":

… at the risk of unilaterally offending 14 million people, I need to say this: If Twitter were a person, it would be an emotionally unstable person. It would be that person we avoid at parties and whose calls we don’t pick up. It would be the person whose willingness to confide in us at first seems intriguing and flattering but eventually makes us feel kind of gross because the friendship is unearned and the confidence is unjustified. The human incarnation of Twitter, in other words, is the person we all feel sorry for, the person we suspect might be a bit mentally ill, the tragic oversharer.

… as Twitter’s popularity wobbles at the tipping point between faddish distraction and worldwide obsession, it’s worth wondering how much of this "connecting" is simply hastening the erosion of our already compromised interpersonal skills. Are we tweeting because we truly want to communicate with a select group of true friends, or because typing has replaced talking and indiscretion has been stripped of all negative connotations? Are most Twitter posts merely inane, or do they carry the faint whiff of the insane?

source: www.latimes.com...

Whoever said using the Internet will make life any easier obviously didn’t think about the social consequences of people’s actions when they type the wrong thing to the wrong person. A good example of when things can go bad is when someone uses a social networking site such as Facebook to break up with their boyfriend.

So, let’s open those ears and start learning a few do’s and don’ts of Facebook usage.

Made me think about how nothing has really changed.
Same social rules apply, facebook just makes the process speeder.



[edit on 20-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

I finally got around to seeing "He's Just Not That Into You" and i was impressed, not your typical chick flick, most guys can relate to the issues/situations covered by both male and female characters. Some of favorite scenes were Barrymore's, which happened to speak directly to the discussion here:





[edit on 1-5-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Dawkins thoughts on Second Life... fascinating all the directions he takes in this discussion. Leaves you pondering the meaning of god within the context of such a social environment and what the future has in store for us... as we all move more and more toward creating and sharing a digital/virtual world.

Google Video Link

[edit on 7-5-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Attention wannabe vigilantes! Drop your homemade weaponry, because these days you can get your crime-solving fill without even leaving the house. The new ultimate device for catching the culprit? Facebook.

This trend certainly isn't new, and as people catch on, criminals are getting busted -- caught because they just couldn't escape the allure of bragging about their criminal achievements on the newsfeed or posting easily identifiable pictures of themselves in online photo albums.

So, would-be criminals and fledgling crime-fighters: Read below, as we walk through the stories of successful Facebook justice.

Internet Justice -- 6 Crimes Solved by Facebook


[edit on 15-5-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Facebook locks out users with weird names... in effort to purge fakes

Alicia Istanbul woke up one recent Wednesday to find herself locked out of the Facebook account she had opened in 2007, after the social networking site suddenly deemed it fake.

The stay-at-home mom was cut off not only from her 330 friends, including many she had no other way of contacting, but also from the pages she had set up for the jewelry design business she runs from her Atlanta-area home.

Although Istanbul understands why Facebook insists on having real people behind real names for every account, she wonders why the online hangout didn't simply ask before acting.

"They should at least give you a warning, or at least give you the benefit of the doubt," she said. "I was on it all day. I had built my entire social network around it. That's what Facebook wants you to do."

Facebook's effort to purge its site of fake accounts, in the process knocking out some real people with unusual names, marks yet another challenge for the five-year-old social network.

As Facebook becomes a bigger part of the lives of its more than 200 million users, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is finding that the huge diversity and the vast size of its audience are making it increasingly difficult to enforce rules it set when its membership was smaller and more homogenous.

Just when these people thought after high school that the harassment would stop ... they get lockedout of FB.

Turns out there is a abovetopsecret.com FB group. At this time last year they had 77 members, a year later they have 325. Interesting to see some of the faces behind the avatars. Obviously these are the least paranoid among us

...or maybe they just haven't gotten around to reading the following threads yet?

Facebook a CIA Front?

The Facebook Conspiracy

I think facebook and myspace are part of a phishing experiment

[edit on 1-6-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Heh heh - yes that is interesting!

I am actually amazed how many people do not realize how easy it is for an amateur researcher to do a fairly accurate profile of them by simply using search engines.

(I have accidentally freaked out a number of people I have conducted business with on Craigslist by having a plethera of information about them that they thought was not so easily accesible to the public domain)

That being said - I believe I am going to give in and create a facebook account - knowing full well that I am actively participating into an important aspect of the Total Information Awareness program.

I will limit my activities there to associating with already known associates of myself (some of whom I am re-connecting with) - so I really won't be giving the system any more information than they already have from my high school yearbook.

(and I certainly won't use it as an avenue for any substantial communication on controvertial subjects)

It is unfortunate that a better, more transparent and open-source alternative to Facebook is not presently available - but even if such a thing exists/existed Facebook has reacehed the critical mass necessary to be useful to me in my networking needs.

Still - as always - I will continue to be very aware of the information that I give out that can be used to profile me - treating my "public" persona as a Brand - while continuing to use my aliases to allow myself a deeper level of interaction on the web.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
Almost all of us have spoken and unspoken rules and preferences to how accessible we want to be... as this relates to our modern era of communication such boundaries aren't always so clear...

Our offline reality often doesn't fit or match our online lives, in many career situations one is forced to adapt and make huge personal sacrifices.

To maintain a corporate competitive edge, there has been a trend in replacing support staff with laptops... which they send home with their most "productive" employees... which has irreversibly erased the line between work and home. With salaries replacing an hourly wage, the work week knows no end. I have heard of people working up to 60-80 hour weeks. To make up for being absent in their domestic life... they hire someone to parent their kids, walk their dog, bring them groceries, deliver their dry cleaning... all in pursuit of ego/glory/status and at the same time driven by fear that they will be let go in the next layoff.

It's not just the yuppies that are feeling the pressure to conform to these modern modes of connecting but just about everyone else as well. Along with all of the efficiency comes with even higher expectations/demands on one's productivity ... even grade schoolers and teachers are feeling it.
So now naturally due to the lack of energy and time to devote to ones social life people turn to these devices to introduce them to like minded people... and as we've seen many tools and services are more then happy to do so.

Case in point, i have grown to despise twitter and anything like it, such as the central feature to facebook the "wall" ... all similar to cell-texting... puts people's trivial self-absorption on stage, the narcissistic atmosphere these devises encourage really make me

Here's a insightfully funny vid that gives some light to what i'm referring to:

I had a related experience with a prospective business partner this past fall, we were driving around the city for weeks looking at vacant warehouses, and every 5-15 minutes he had his face glued to his blackberry. After the first day of this, needless to say it was pissing me off, it was as if i was competing with this random textings for his undivided attention. I could even see half of the time he was listening to me he had some other conversation going on in his head. After a couple days of this i got in his face over it and he explained that his fiancée was a "little" obsessive and possessive... i said in reply, you mean to say "insanely so"? He reluctantly agreed but felt powerless to do anything about it. Turns out that the bulk of their dialog was twitter-like shorthand texting and only a small fraction of his total exchanges were of any real significance. Once i understood his predicament, i felt sorry for him... more like pity actually. Talk about having a "monkey on your back" with "ball and chain".

In sum, these are some of the ways in which people get turned off and on to these new ways of sharing their lives.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

This is why I am glad I live in Wyoming. I make good money in a good job with days off and very little stress in my life. Stress is not good for you! (some is but not the kind we are talking about) People like you described here that live under all that stress will easily die young. I hate to say it but it does shorten your lifespan.

The cellphone is not supposed to be a lifeline. What ever happened to going to lunch with a friend, or going over to their house without a phone in your pocket. I know many people that I see on a regular basis that visit my home, and half the time they are on their cellphone texting or whatever! I mean WTF!! Wouldn't that be considered rude in most people's book? Wait hold on, sending a twitter! I just twitted all over the place!

Not to mention, people see violence that they should never have to experience on the television. We really see some pretty graphic stuff. We become so desensitized to it, that when we see the real thing we are like "oh big deal". Is it good that we are becoming emotionally numb zombie versions of ourselves?

[edit on 2-6-2009 by DaMod]

reply to post by DaMod


There is definitely a learning curve on the new lexicon, 'netiquette'. You wouldn't think you'd have to tell people how to conduct themselves with these new modes of connecting while maintaining connections with people face to face, but apparently we do. Maybe in the near future, mandatory netiquette courses will be required of every high school and college graduate.

As for the opportunity these technologies are giving corporations to exploit their work force, i think it's just a matter of time that people will present job agreement contracts that outline the time conditions they are willing to work under. For now it looks like the trend is still in practice, to eliminate 'redundant' positions (downsize) in favor of adding additional tasks to each remaining employee, till everyone out of fear of loosing their job take more and more work home with them to keep up with the work load... and since cheap new college graduates are so plentiful, they can get away with burning out their senior staff.

[edit on 2-6-2009 by The All Seeing I]

reply to post by TruthMagnet


After reading the following;

10 People From Your Past Who Will Haunt You On Facebook

I changed my privacy settings using the suggestions in;

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Better safe then sorry i always say... how's that for tin-hat-level paranoid

[edit on 2-6-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Originally posted by TheOracle
The worrying this is that society today EXPECTS us to be slaves of technology and modern communication. They expect all of us to always have a mobile phone nearby and an email.
I am always for progress but not when it turns us into antisocial beings when we were designed as social creatures.
I do hope one day we all realise how pointless is it to live under constant stress.

I'm not worried about degrading humanity into anti-social beings, I don't see it happening despite the technological advances. In fact I think people are mingling with other people more than it was before.....

BUT I am worried about one thing - the quality of relationships. We may have a lot more virtual/real 'friends'. But most of the relationships are cold nowadays, it's all about finding the people that will give you the most fun and pleasure, and discard them the moment, they can no longer provide your emotional needs.

Somehow, I do blame technology, because it's makes it infinitely easier to find people, that their value as another human plummets because we can easily replace our friends nowadays