Hello world: I am so alone here on the internet.
Lately, there has been lot of bizarre writing on how the hotspots of the internet, be that Facebook or Twitter or anything else, is bad for you. The Guardian covers some of the fluff here.
I must admit I am beginning to tire of the headlines, formulaic as they are. Apparently, Facebook can kill, divorce you, deprive you of good old fashioned hugs, eat your pet and so on. (OK, so I made up the last one – slap me!)
Twitter is even more disastrous – it can give you cancer as social isolation (read interacting in online environments) alter our genes. (PDF link to piece of sensationalist research)
I quote:
One of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction
in the number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being. Recent his-
tory has seen people in marked retreat from one another as Britain moves from a culture of
greater common experience to a society of more isolated experience. She is in good com-
pany, as Americans too step back from one another in unprecedented magnitude.
I feel like crying. For what exactly does it mean to interact with another human being?
Every day I take the tube to work. Every day, there a millions on that tube. Every day, I stare at people while I hardly interact with anyone. Unless I bump into them, in which case they’ll let out some mean hisses before they turn their backs at me.
Every day, I go on Twitter. Every day, I post replies to people who talk directly to me – people I know, people I don’t know. Every day, I respond to someone’s tweet with my own thoughts on a subject. I ask for favours. I return favours. We make jokes, we laugh, we share, and sometimes, we even meet up.
I confess – I can’t hear their voices. I recognize them only by the way the present themselves (yes, those weirdly creative avatars or close up photos). And I can’t touch them (mouse clicks don’t count, do they?). So I guess, the moral of the story is this:
All this time, I’ve been fooling myself. I’m retreating from the world rather then getting closer to it. In unprecedented magnitude.
11 comments
Clearly the answer is for tube users to wear a sign showing their Twitter name :-)
Maybe then we’d all be so much friendlier with each other:)
Dunno, E. I think the internet has really changed how politics works over here, in terms of overcoming isolation (and disorganization). There’s no going back now, and thank heaven for that. Long live the trace, the signature, even the (much-maligned) emoticon … :)
Can’t tell which (if any) part of this is tongue-in-cheek. But of course it’s a little bit of both. More acquaintances. Wider circles. Whether that makes more friends is up to us, I think.
Yeah, that social NOTworking stuff is poison! All it does is lead to superficial e-relationships, to pseudo-friendships that evaporate when you put your computer to sleep.
Well, and sometimes it leads to drinks at the Ritz.
Hmm, DIane, is my irony lost somewhere:)
Yes, you’re right Andrew, I think it is up to people, and that’s the point.
Social communities aren’t growing grounds for “high lone” individuals. I understand that as I work in the industry I’m a slightly different type user than most – but I do tend to meet and form life long friendships with the people I connect with online, like Jim:) Which indeed lead to drinks at the RItz.
And you and I met at a Dopplr talk – which was another example of an event bringing together people from an online environment:)
Hi Elin,
Of course you’re right; even traditionally shoe-gazing physicists aren’t loners any more — I work in collaborations of 2 to several hundred people much more often than on my own nowadays. (And anyway I prefer high and lonesome).
high and lonesome
And hey, don’t you owe me an email? How about that drink finally? (Have to choose somewhere other than the Ritz, I guess!)
Hi Elin. I just actually found your blog thorugh twitter and had to stop and read as I just wrote my own post to twitter as well. So many people have been doing that lately and yes, it does change things.
What I mean is, I’ve been seeing so many people on my timeline who’s face (or avatar) pops up so frequently when I’m checking in, that it’s really been making me wonder about how socially healthy they actually are…….or maybe I’m just over thinking the entire social media addiction thing. :)
Nemmlig.
As we go forward with so called advancment in life as a world we seem to become more disconected even more so in the west the sence of family and comunity interacting on a one on one level seems to become more difficult we are to consumed in our own little worlds and not looking at the big picture
Perhaps it’d be different if you moved outside London. London is a big city with 8 million folks, people in big cities do not talk to each other much, its the same where you go in the world.
If you move to a rural village in Devon or Cumbria or the like i am in your everyday life people would greet you and perhaps joke, laugh, and even sometimes meet up. Best to get away from London.