What kind of change does being constantly connected through email, facebook, cell-phones, etc. cause in my daily life? Being face to face with other people--to me--involves several responses. The other is an attraction to be looked upon and spoken to as well as something that imposes duties on me; the duty to respond to them and pay attention to them. These interactions are necessary, exhilarating, addicting, but also taxing emotionally and time consuming. For all these reasons, we generally try to find a balance between time alone for ourselves and time in society.
Before, this balance was more or less easy to find as retiring to one's home meant moving beyond the reach of other people--at least to an extent. In order to connect with one another more energy needed to be expended such as writing a letter, visiting another house, or making a live phone call. These barriers to communication (and privacy and alone time) have now all been broken down. I find myself being bombarded with demands (each email, text-message, facebook post is a form of demand and attraction) from the other to which I feel a duty to respond. The computer is not a passive device for information or simply connecting with others; it is literally a gateway that allows people to shout at me 24/7 to which I must respond. I find this great on one level (as I am able to keep contact with loved ones), but for my particularly OCD personality, I find that a computer makes me less effective as my alone time is slowly whittled away. And I of course have not even mentioned the problem with the type of relationships that one forms in cyberspace, etc.
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