Before I start this post, I'd like to give a shout out to Regina Lynn, whose column regularly appears in Wired. She writes all about sex and technology. If you wonder what thats all about, check out her articles and you'll get a feel for it. Well, I am not here to really write about sex and tech. Regina does it much better. Her column inspired me to write this post and I thank her for that. I am here to write about the bigger picture, our life online and our life, not online.
Many of us who blog and/or read others blogs know very well what I am talking about. Is there any one amongst us who does not feel that our life is increasingly becoming more online, and less of reality ?. There are of course those exceptional ones who balance a fantastic online life with a great social life. But this is not about those select few to whom I bow, by the way. Its for the rest of us, who try to balance a work life, an online life and then our real lives. My wife often complains about me spending too much time on the computer when I am at home. I agree. I am at fault. But then, how do I fix it? We people, atleast those in the US, know about how everything from paying your bills to finding out routes to communicating with people to meeting our potential future partners, do everything on the internet. So how then do we escape the cluthes of the technology that really is only supposed to be there for help, and not take over our lives? Not exaggerating the scenario, I do have a good social life. I go out regularly and my wife and I do stuff that is fun and does not involve the computer. But I can also see that the quality time is courtesy a good wife who shares a penchant for doing stuff, sans the computer. I dread to think of those days before my marriage when I was wedded to my computer and all things tech. If it were not for those few friends with whom I shared some good times, my life would have started and ended with Startup and Shutdown.
I know many readers here are single, working in some good company and making a lot of money, but really not knowing how to spend their time in a way that excites and challenges you. To those people Id ask, any luck yet ? Have you made the critical breakthrough that reinforces your mental supremacy over the control of the machine ? Have you succeeded in seperating your online life from your real life, in flesh and blood ?. If so, where do you draw the line ?
26 comments:
Very good post. you are raising an important concern here. I see some points about paying bills and such. To begin with I would suggest that you draw a line to study more into this issue. Draw a ine between essential online activity and obsessive online activity. Paying telephone bills, cell phone bills, credit card bills, reading/writing mails etc are essential activities and there is no obsession involved there.
But things beyond these basic actions .... are more on the "luxury/obsessive" side. The more time we spend on these "luxury/obsessive" items, the more time we lose on the awesome real world out there. Sadly many people do not realize that and many people in today's isolated societies are becoming slaves of a new technology.
Consider social networking things like Friendster, Tribe, Orkut, Myspace etc .... why are those sites gaining so much popularity nowadays? It is simply because more people are venting out their social cravings in a virtual sense and compromising on real world interactions. I feel it is a sad thing.
Like you said, some do strike a good balance but they are exceptions and exceptions never make good examples.
Good point Arun. The problem is, the essential actions somehow manage to become the starting points for compulsive action. Thats where it hurts.
Check out this scenario:
X has a credit card from Amazon.com. Spends money and then gets a rewards certificate for $25. He wants to see what he can buy with that money. Goes to Amazon.com and before he knows it, he is looking all over the site and likes it so much that he starts visiting it very often. Then this visiting leads to reading reviews of many electronic products which in turn leads him to other sites with reviews. Many reviews later, he is looking at stuff that has no connection with his initial search for the $25 thingie in Amazon.com.
Where do we draw the line?
And yes, the social networking sites are having a ball exploiting the fundamental problem with all of us being lack of social face-to-face interaction.
PS: Blogging is really a free and easy to use version of the Tribe/Orkut/Friendster/My space we talk about.
it all depends on the social circle you are in. and also the individual itself. for someone who is not an extrovert, who cannot be comfortable with a bunch of people, then online activity comes as a boon to him/her. they get deeper and depper into this.
In our cases, most of us share our ideas and thoughts through email, blogging and chatting. so we use it increasingly, more than ever before. but at the same time we don't use it more than a couple of hrs during weekends. atleast I don't. I make it a point to go out and meet people.
Basically its not how much you are forced, its how much you want from life and in what means you want it.
You raised the question that was in my mind for a while. Since I am so much interested in this topic I am going to check your comments every 15-20 mts. I am falling in to the online trap thiking that I am going to find answers ;)
Btw I feel this is the best post from you because I know exactly what you are saying.
I personally feel that there need not be any worries regarding this issue...would our parents thought the same way when telephone came in...would they have missed face-face interactions...had this lead to any loss in social life...I think technology can never lead to a loss(unless specifically used for that purpose)...Man is such an intelligent animal, that he would always find ways to adapt...
But I also find some common ground with the post...check out my post on "Me Culture"..where the book in question has raised certain valid(though not completely realted to this post) points...may be our behavious changes because of this online life...true..my frnds say that to convey a message to me, its better to leave a comment on my blog rather than call me or search for me...but I dont find any problem in that...at the end of the day, he had conveyed the message and i had got it...only the medium has changed..
But sure enuf, we need to draw a line...the line betweenhow much we say about ourselves in the net in open...ouor privacy should not be compromised..Chakra too has blogged about this and I think this is one issue,we need to ponder on for quite some time, till someother technology takes over Ineternet and our lives..then atleast the question would shift to "some other technology"...
Nice Post....
Saranyan
As I noted, there are some good exceptions to the rule and you are one.
But the other point you mentioned, that the net is really a good meeting point for introverts, isnt always true. An introvert, if he or she is interested in making friends, more than the extroverts, needs to get out and meet people. By hiding behind the confines of the internet, he or she, while solving their problem temporarily, dont end up really facing the issue.
Me
Glad that you found the post to your interest. It has also been a quest for me to find solution to this problem which I believe will assume much bigger proportions as time passes.
I hope the comments here from various people helps you atleast look in the right direction. And yes, the cycle continues and we are looking online for solutions :)
Krish
I agree that the internet is really a new medium for communication among people. But the problem is that unlike telephone of yonder, the internet is much more pervasive and addictive. I know that after a point of time, one grows tired of holding the telephone. The internet isnt like that. There is always something new to see, new to do and new to get hooked on to. Blogging is now so addictive, you can see the network of visitors and visited increasing and voila, there you have a time-consumer.
Like the author of Mediated says, we may just be that. By the way, you have me all interested on the book. Ill probably check it out sometime.
I had sent the post to Regina Lynn, the starting point for the post and here is what she had to say to me over email.
Q| "It seems to me that we all eventually find the right balance of
tech-enabled and in-person interaction. Natural to swing too far one way or the other for a while until we figure out where it all belongs!"|Q
Ranga,
you had one big dig at all the guys with your "any luck yet" comment.
If you ask me to summarize the last paragraph it would turn out to be something like this
" do you all morons have a life at all? how long are you going to do this before you pull yourself up and go find a life"
made all of us(hope i can talk on behalf of everyone) look like the dude in napolean dynamite who says something like this to his brother
" you are jealous because I talk with chicks on internet all day"
;-)
dude, I didn't say that an introvert hogs the net to find freinds. instead he/she uses it to avoid mingling with people.
its a personal thing, I still believe that we have absolute control over what we do. Its just that paying bills and reading papers are increasingly online. that isn't bad as it saves a lot of money and time :)
I agree with what Regina Lynn says about us finding the right balance. And as Saranyan noted, the individual still controls whatever they do.
But the problem is that, the judgement that calls for such control is clouded, and some people cannot think beyond that. Thats where it is helpful for someone to prod them out of that cloud (parents at home, girl friend/boy friend/spouse at home, or simply your best friend).
Simply put, there has to be the concerted individual and social effort to seek that balance. Introverted people might need that prodding from their more extroverted folks to get out more.
Even now, Internet is as pervasive only to the extent to which it can reach..Internet is addictive...bloggin is addictive...no doubt...but as Regina Lynn says, I beleive we would defintiely find someway to balance it..else we would evolve into another species, which isnt interested in these things of personal n online life...what I mean, Internet has become so ingrained(atleast to those who are exposed to it...n the rate @which it is expanding, it will embrace the entire humanity in may be another 20 years) in all of us, that it will become jus another thing that has been tackled...
Hellboy
I have to say, very funny response. I dig Napoleon Dynamite and a nice relevant quote from the movie.
Couple of clarifications to your comment. I wasnt taking a dig at all guys reading this but all of us in general (myself included in a big way). In fact, gauging by the responses, many readers seem to have struck the right balance between their online life and real life and I think I still need to address my case better. It now appears as if, the dig was self-inflicted, rather than being aimed at the rest of the readers :)
Saranyan,Krish
I think Ramesh counters part of your argument. Agreed we are all intelligent enough to exercise the control we talk about. and we probably all do it in some way or the other. But then, the judgement of control is clouded and an external stimulus might be needed time and again to get us back to our senses. And that in effect really explains things the way they are. Humans as defined are and should be completely in control themselves all the time. Any external factor that requires additional internal or external effort to kept in check is a cause for worry.
Remember, I am just saying we are starting to look at something that is increasingly a problem. Not yet the biggest problem but I am sure we'll get there, seeing the proliferation of everything and anything on the internet.
Jagan
Valid point. And in this aspect, I hope and think that people in India are doing better. I mean, there are a million things to do in the US and work is hectic only if you make it that way. If you do your stuff on time, you are pretty much good to have your evenings and weekends to yourself. But the weather (atleast in the NE) plays a part in inhibiting your outdoor activities. In India the weather is a boon, esp in the evenings and there is always a big circle of friends, places to eat, movies to see and things to do, at arms length. And most importantly, internet is still a work thing in India. In the US, high speed internet is something every person has and the convenience of that or sometime inconvenience is hard to compare to India.
Or maybe, the grass is always greener on the other side ?
I dig ND too…
“Pedro for president!!!!!!!!”
Aside, Jagan hit the nail on its head saying that the ubiquitous single, employed US desi don’t have a personal life. Come on, even after those trekking trips, those pickup softball, basketball, football games, those movies you still have tons and tons of time to kill.
Other comments may deny this and try to explain how they are striving or almost achieved a perfect balance between their personal (?) and cyber life. But the plain truth is the absence of your friends and like minded people nearby deprives you of having a thriving, thriving is the key word here, social life.
never thot I would read such a long post. I ended up reading all the comments too. I wonder why this bothers people so much. Let me re-read the entire thing!
Jagan
Having never worked in India, I cannot comment on the lifestyle there. Folks from INdia who visit the blog can possibly answer better.
Hellboy
What can I say ? I guess you summarised the meaning of my long post in few simple words. If the solution was simple, neither would I have written about it nor would so many social networking sites received so much VC money :)
Harish
Thanks for stopping by. Unfortunately, posts in this blog tend to be a trifle long and discussions, elaborate. I believe that is the intention of my blogging. Glad you read them fully.
Maybe I am missing the entire point in hellboy's comment, but, isn't thriving social life a relative term?
Plus, if there is tons and tons of time to kill, and then its used up on the web, why is it an issue anymore? Isn't it an issue only when it eats into your regular life?
I guess the question we need to be asking ourselves is this - is our internet/computer use eating into activities that we would be normally doing (i.e. in the absense of a computer and/or high speed bandwidth, or in the face). If the answer is a "No" then I honestly think it is not that big a deal. If it is a "Yes", thats when we have an issue at hand.
I should have talked for myself. you have a valid point in the third paragraph.
If a person who was not doing much pre-internet spends a lot of his time in cyber space after he gets introduced to higher bandwidth, then he should not be accused of losing his personal life. Good, point taken
in my case till i graduated i had "stuff" to do with my friends(remember that high speed internet was at my disposal). So the time i spent on internet was low or totally balanced vis a vis my real life activities. right now i am in a place where i know nobody and my friends are in different timezones. this forces me to spent more time on internet thereby taking away things that i would have done if i were with my friends and people sharing same interest. This makes one feel like getting his personal life robbed.
And yeah thriving social life is relative and I addressed it from an Indian perspective (meaning- my once thriving social life should not be construed as one with an active night life, where bar hoping and getting laid like bunnies is a way of life)
Ramesh
Good points but from a logical perspective there is a flaw in the argument. See, the problem is, unless I have free time and experiment with very many things, I wont know what I can do with it. Imagine yourself in a place where all of a sudden your high speed connection is yanked away. Youll feel bored, frustrated but soon try to do things to kill time. This is cool but it should also happen without you being forced to do it.
Hellboy
Good comment. When we have company which is usually the case atleast in grad school in the US (not sure of equivalent in India) things are pretty hectic and there are always things to do. But once the job thingie kicks in, its a whole different ball game and thats where the doing-something comes in. I didnt know dancing was so much fun until I started dance classes. I didnt know that learning a language could be fun until I took Spanish classes. Its all out there. Somehow, the computer and internet seem to play a part in trying its best to keep you from trying it out.
jagan & hellboy, your views are completely from an Indian perspective. when I say personal life, its life outside work. when you get married, you can still take her to places and meet your friends on a regular basis. then it becomes a "me and her" personal life. I never thought it was just me all the time.
Also as Ramesh said, if we have that much time to kill, then whats the problem with spending more time on the internet.
Saranyan
Two things, and this coming from a married person. When you get a lot of free time before marriage, get out and do stuff. Because post marriage, your free time gets cut and there are lots of things you do together and not alone anymore. Nothing bad about it, but if you sit in front of the internet when single, you'll miss out on all the action.
Nice post
Exactly what I was feeling sometime back.But u know now I feel that we shudnt really worry about the "online" thingie..
Anyways I joined some classes to get away from it..That was all I cud think of :)
Prabha
Anything that doesnt involve the computer and the internet is a big change alright.
Post a Comment