Against my better judgement I’ve decided to document questions I have, in my “real life” here on my blog.
The internet does not lend itself well to “casual” or “intermittent,” it’s a bit opposite to the term ubiquitous computing. I carried my laptop with me my first year in college, far before it was cool to do so—to the point that it became ridiculous, sitting isolated in courses held in computer labs on my beloved laptop. I just couldn’t part with it, or store my documents somewhere else, to retreive and re-archive them later. It seemed so wasteful and useless.
I went on through college, as slowly rooms became more populated with laptops, and my many networks of friends began to populate online communities such as facebook, or my newfound gmail address. I made new connections, rekindled old ones and added everyone (all the way back to friends from elementary school—even preschool) into my network.
My laptop, and thus the network of social individuals that reach out to me through it are always nearby. The computer, and its networks are something I’m always using, and often the people I’ve just met take part in the world of ubiquitous computing too.
Conversations are held over email, email lends to gchat, text messages and facebook wall posts. There is an archive of my life in digital format, that alone is uninteresting, or at least less interesting than the questions it poses.
What to do when an ex shows up as the first person to contact at the type-ing of just thier first letter. Do they really have a monopoly on memories and also that one letter in gmail? It’s hard to try and forget when your gmail keeps a memory for you of what has been important in your life.
The line between professional and personal is becoming more and more blurred. When someone is interested in my work, follows me on twitter or sends a nice email, what are their motives? It is less clear cut than trading business cards implicating work, and trading phone numbers meaning romantic interest or friendship.
The overlap is becoming very confusing in my life. In the days of the telephone’s monopoly on dating life, giving someone space was easy: wait at least three days after the date until calling. No. Matter. What. To evade the game, too was to make a statement, as was following it and playing along. Now the game has too many rules that overlap and contradict each other. When to gchat? What is a date? What is a friendship? How to break up, break off or take a step back? How to connect? Where can anyone draw distinct lines in a digital world defined through evading the absolute truth of bianaries: date/friendship work/personal connected/disconnected?
