Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteI've never been so busy nor less productive in my fields -- editor, writer, photographer, musician; emphasis: composition; ancillary: research, analysis and intuitive-creative development. Here, I thought I would take just a minute or a few to map out a few of the social and environmental variables bearing down on the latest in desktop-anchored Netizens.
Cybersocial Energy
A. Cyber: Acquaintances, Associates, Friends, Frenemies, Prospects, Clients
B. Realspace: Acquaintances, Associates, Friends, Family, Clients, Prospects
C: Combined Cyber-Realspace Acquaintances, Associates, Friends, Frenemies, Family, Clients, Prospects
X
1. Breadth of Interests (encyclopaedic requirement)
2. Relationship Scope (activity repertoire)
3. Frequency of Contact
4. Depth of Engagement (e.g. light chat to deeply research correspondence)
5. Intensity of Engagement / Level of Involvement
For those who have come of age prior to common broadband Internet services, the expansion of the scope of relationships in total and demands for competence and flexibility in topic availability (things we'd like to talk about), selection, and pursuit has been as burdensome as it has been revolutionary, for each person x topic x conversation x frequency x depth alters demands on intellectual focus, energy available for reflection, the development of insight, and expression, and, ultimately on real time expended on behalf of the interaction.
Should you embark on a conversation with the world via Facebook, you may find not only the world demanding but the research overviews and excursions required for contribution time consuming in and of themselves.
Without a tight focus or well defined purpose, while one reads, formulates, chats, and posts online for a wide audience and with catholic interests, much may be neglected offline.
Calls may be missed too and call-backs put off for longer intervals.
The dishes will wait in the sink as will the dust bunnies beneath the beds, the soiled laundry, the books and magazines piling up on whatever surface happened to be available when they were put aside.
Skype
Text-based thread chat --> e-mail --> instant messaging --> audio contact --> audio-visual contact form the mileposts between anonymity and intimacy in cyberspace. It's one thing to drop a comment in a communal thread-of-interest; quite another to establish through-the-webcam eye contact plus a sudden introduction not only to a correspondent's voice and face and manners but also, tellingly, the remote environment from which that person communicates online. For that, I have today in memory the experience of distant living rooms, garages, workshops, and offices, and I may expect to see much more before I am out of Skyping time forever.
With Skype, some 6,492 kilometers of separation evaporates between webcams.
Of course, also with Skype there are yet some senses missing--taste, smell, touch--but hearing and sight seem primary by comparison, and they are powerful arbiters of what we accept as compelling and engaging. Flirty typing may have its charms in social dramas that may go on a while or be cut short, but live conversations held at length beg for the invention of personal policies having to do with the creation of peer-to-peer obligations, the setting of boundaries, and, back to theme, the management of one's time.
Few things may bring this home like sitting down at the computer, looking into someone else's living room, and watching their television with them.
A new creature roams the earth: Cyberguest!
One of my earliest experiences with Skype--my phrasing makes it sound like "years ago" but it has been only months since I installed the software--involved editing artwork sent to my desktop as a PDF file via Gmail. I'd look over the work, talk about its elements with the artist, and await revision, perhaps fixing a cup of coffee for myself in the kitchen down the hall, but with the eerie sense of having a disembodied somebody in the office nagging the return to my desk to resume live conversation.
Given the pleasant injunctions of the Jewish Sabbath, I have at least one lofty excuse for closing for a day (make it two) the computer-enabled broadband pipeline (for good measure, I may turn the cell phone off too, just checking every few hours for messages). In any case, close the communication channels, and apartment's atmosphere changes, growing quiet as the cooling fans cease, perhaps too quiet, but also organic again, restful, and after rest, promising.
One needs to know today not only when to stop looking out on the world through Windows but also how to disappear from the constant view and access by others established by them.
# # #
Comments