i was listening to npr on my way back from chicago and the woman being interviewed said something about the gas crisis drawing people more into their immediate neighborhood because they realize it takes a lot of gas and money to see friends that are farther away.
it got me thinking about the nature of friendship and how friendships have changed since email/blogs/facebook/myspace/cell phone/any other kind of advanced technology. now we are more connected than before, but the connections are different, broader but shallower?? i keep up with old friends via internet, and i can feel connected without ever actually talking to them. people can read all about my life via my blog and my facebook, and feel like they're caught up with my life, and we would never have to physically connect. like, when i look at my site meter, and somebody from Romania looked at my blog. someone across the Atlantic has read all about my seminary journey, my obsession with jane eyre, my cooking attempts. someone from a totally different country that i have never seen, probably will never see, might feel like they know me, at least a little. or at least, they know how i choose to represent myself.
so it's different, but is it bad?
are we more connected to the globe but less to our neighbors? can we be both? is the npr woman right? will the economy drive us back to the way we were? or will it rather drive us further into isolation, communicating with others within the confines of our individual homes?
4 comments:
It's different, but I don't think it's bad. I don't know that people were all wonderfully, happily connected to their neighbors before, though -- sometimes I think that's older people saying "In my day, we talked to the people across the street!" We do that in our day, too! But we also IM people in other countries.
i think about this all the time. What is hard for me is when I am willing to put myself out there and then others know all about my life, and feel like we are close in our friendship, but I have no idea what the jimmy is going on in their lives. There are definite hard spots about our new world and those who do and don't participate.
So I know this is way old now, but I was thinking about it yesterday while flopping on the couch and being lazy about doing errands.
I'm the first to admit I'm the biggest internet geek. But I also live in a neighborhood where my grocery store, credit union, gym, indy bookstore, indy video store, library, post office, and several restaurants and cafes are all within six blocks. Anything that's not is within a bus ride away. I still meet up with friends at these local neighborhood places, and talk to the people at the video store, gym, and credit union know my name and we talk every time I visit. And I am also addicted to Amazon, Netflix, and online banking.
Guess this is the long rambling way of saying I don't think it's an either-or situation. I think it depends on how individuals want to use technology in their own lives. It can either enhance or supplant everything else.
Speaking of the 'hood, I should go pick up my prescription from my local pharmacist, which I renewed online. =)
The prescription was renewed, not the pharmacist. Sorry. Dangling modifier.
Post a Comment