For this story, I Facebooked someone who texted me back seconds later, having received a notification on his iPhone. I found his cell number on mine and called him on a landline so I could put a headset on to leave my hands free to type notes into the computer. If I'd had the right software add-ons to Skype, I could have gotten a transcript of our talk to use instead.
I talked to him as he was walking around taking photos in Las Vegas, prior to being best man at an Elvis-officiated wedding that would be viewed live online by friends who couldn't make it to Sin City for the celebration.
Another pair of potential interview subjects were in Europe and — although technologically literate — were in a Skype-free zone. But they responded to e-mails, and we arranged a face-to-face meeting on their return, at a local coffee shop.
I posted questions about the subject matter to various online forums, in the process getting responses from the Southwest, from Tennessee, from New York City and from people I'd seen only days before, here in town, or would have seen more recently in real life, if social networking weren't so easy.
Tweet, Skype, text, Facebook, Myspace me ... Googling a stranger to find out who they are is almost over, so five minutes ago. Facebook, at five years old, is current heavyweight champion, but what's next on the horizon?
If you and I knew, we'd be rich.
The point is, something will be next. We're not going backward, despite Garrison Keillor- esque homilies to 'good ol' days.' No matter how we revere hand-crafted goods at the Kentuck Festival of the Arts, none of us is giving up our dishwasher, trash compactor or juicer for a butter churn.
So how do we live with what technology hath wrought?
The Tom Waits effect
Barrie Jo Price and Anna McFadden, of the Institute of Interactive Technology in the University of Alabama's College of Human Environmental Sciences, are pretty much the polar opposite of the stereotype of the techno-geek. They're women, for one thing. Of a certain age, for another. And utterly normal and at home with people, such as their families, colleagues and each other. They've been working together so long — since 1976 — that they've become the archetypal pair, finishing each other's sentences and thoughts. And they're thrilled with all that has come and is coming.
'We love this stuff,' they say, almost simultaneously.
They're not talking specifically about the toys themselves, although they were owners of an early Apple computer in 1978, because they'd seen the need to replicate data for less-served areas in a more efficient way than actually sending teachers to remote areas. After working at several colleges and on private contracts around the world, they came to UA 20 years ago from the University of Miami. McFadden's the hardware person; Price is the application and organization side, so she does much of the talking.
Both of them agree that what computer-aided networking can do is create what they call 'The Tom Waits Effect.'
While people-watching at a mall or park, you might envision the lives of people based on clues and observations, as songwriter Waits did with tunes such as 'I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You,' where the narrator spots a girl across the room and imagines her life and emotional state.
'We fill in the blanks from how we, either by looking at a photo, by hearing their voice on an mp3, if we know enough about them, about the setting ... ' Price said.
'We fill in the gaps,' McFadden finished.
Are you reading exclamation points on emails? The haste, or lack thereof, indicated by spelling and grammatical mistakes? The frequency of communications? The sound of a voice on an mp3 or the gleam in the eye on a monitor-mounted camera? If the id is revealed in instant messages, is the superego shining on Facebook?
'People do construct their own realities for other folks, whether in person or otherwise,' Price said.
'We really can paint a more colorful image of that person from all these clues,' McFadden said.
Back to basics
What if the bomb dropped? Or more specifically, what would happen to real life if virtual life died overnight?
'The first thing that comes to mind is that I would finally know who my neighbors are,' wrote Johnny Mack Standridge, via Facebook. ' ... I'd have some common ground with which to continue an actual conversation with spoken words, which would probably result in speculation about the cause of our predicament and planning for what to do next. Then more neighbors would come out of their homes and we'd all say, ‘Man, this is crazy! What are we going to do?'
'Since I live in a military town and most of my neighbors are soldiers, we'd agree that there isn't much we can do besides have a neighborhood barbecue and buy a few kegs. So that's what would happen if there were no electronic devices: block parties for miles, all across the world.'
Ariane Godfrey agreed it would be relaxing, at least for a few days. She'd have no reason to go to work without computers.
'I think it would be good for folks to reconnect eye to eye,' she wrote. 'I would miss Facebook though.'
Dickie Cox is thick in electronics as a staff member in Media Production Services at Albuquerque's Central New Mexico Community College. But he's basically a hands-on guy.
'Thankfully, I have retained my skills with face-to-face communications, writing on paper, drawing on paper, painting on cloth, library use, cooking,' he wrote, 'and I still memorize things routinely. I would likely begin to offer to work for free for farmers and builders to learn necessary skills.'
Any new technology that bursts onto the scene eventually becomes the norm, then fades away, said Wayne Rau, who works in digital media at UA.
'If an EMP [electromagnetic pulse] went off, I think it initially would be stressful without all of our digitals and cellulars and portables and minis,' he wrote. 'People rely more on technologies than people. This is what we presently know. And to some, it is
all
they know.
'I think it wouldn't be as bad as one may expect. If everyone, as a whole, is lacking, then we will find other ways of networking. It's how each new generation grows socially. Our environment would lighten the burden as well by shifting directions and taking us down a non- technological path.'
DCH radiation technologist Louise Holifield Manos remembers a time before the gadgets we now consider necessities.
'I could easily do without them again. The people who will have trouble are the ones who do not know any other way to exist,' she wrote. However, she added, 'I have enjoyed reconnecting with old friends from 30 years ago and would not have been able to do this without the computer.'
Theatre Tuscaloosa executive director Tina Fitch took a mini-vacation from technology recently.
'I didn't turn on my TV all weekend. It was lovely. I haven't gotten a Blackberry thingy yet because I don't always want to be in touch. I crave quiet time and reading and writing,' she wrote.
'I do remember the time before cell phones and computers. You had to manage your time more wisely and you actually had to think before you typed a sentence on a typewriter. Now it is just so easy to type and delete. I think writing used to be a process of writing and then re-writing. Now, it's just re- writing (editing right there on the spot).
'The older I get, the more I understand why my parents don't want to use all this newfangled Internet stuff. I spend more time on Facebook than face to face. I spend more time text-messaging than actually talking. I spend more time looking at photos of other people's adventures rather than taking adventures myself.'
New York actor Heather Lawson, a UA grad, agreed with Fitch's evaluation of the devaluation of the art of writing.
'Pre-electronic times: What you wrote, you meant. You had to sit down, think about it, write it clearly, get the postage, pay for postage and wait for the mailman,' she wrote. 'You know they really want you to be at their wedding. They know you really wanted to thank them for their kindness, etc., etc.
'As opposed to now, when I just change my Facebook status in .2 seconds, and let everyone know something I will change my mind about 30 seconds later.
'Don't get me wrong. I'm not wishing to be put back into the past; I've got Netflix. But a handwritten note every now and then is classy,' Lawson wrote.
Tiers of friends
Some scoff at those on Facebook who have 'friends' they haven't met in real life. But not Charles Prosser, an early adaptor of technology trends who was a computer science major at UA when they still worked with punch cards and Univac terminals.
'I first got online in the late '80s with a company called Quantum Link,' which later became AOL,
the first major global Internet services company. 'This was back when, if you had a 1200 baud modem, you were just moving,' he said, laughing.
A teacher at Collins-Riverside Middle School, Prosser teaches computer technology and works with publications, but in his down time he communicates with pals in Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia and Norway.
'These are people I keep in touch with online, I have never met physically, but have a relationship with on Facebook,' he said. 'Although spelling has suffered, social interaction has improved. You don't get the same late night, drunk in the bar, face-to-face chats, but you can — with text, with video, with Skype — carry on very real relationships.'
Just as societies developed manners and modes of behavior for interpersonal relations over decades, standards for mediated lives are evolving.
'As a teacher, I have to control what my students see,' Prosser said. 'You kind of start with levels of friendships. Like your first tier is really close friends; your second tier might be people you work with, former schoolmates or students; and the third tier is friends of friends who you accepted because somebody else you knew, knew them.'
Some on Facebook won't 'friend' family members, because privacy levels are too slippery or hard to control. There are some things that are just TMI for Mom. Despite the examples of McFadden and Price, older users tend to be those coming late to the game.
'My mom, for example, just go on the Internet within the last two years, in a real way,' Prosser said. 'She's still in the knee-jerk forwarder stage, where she doesn't even take time to erase all the previous addresses. ‘Isn't this cute?' '
Afterward the chronic forwarder might move on, say to dabbling in a blog.
'You start thinking ‘I'm going to have 50 million readers,' and then three of your friends sign up, and they're not there every day, and one day you have nothing to write about, so that falls away,' Prosser said.
Then you get into instant-message chatting, but you get bored again, realizing not everyone you want is on all the time. If you're lucky, you won't get hooked into a game like World of Warcraft, where you spend inordinate amounts of time in a virtual world.
Maybe you settle into finding the one program that works for you. For many now, that's Facebook, where you can chat, e-mail, post notes or videos, provide links and updates that virtually replicate Twitter. In that process, you begin to realize those are real people you're dealing with, whether you've met in the flesh or not.
'Kids are learning you have to be respectful,' Prosser said. 'There's a whole new vocabulary, a whole new code of manners, a metaverse of ways of behaving that's been evolving slowly over the past 20 years.
'We are in a transition between pre-tech communication and behaviors to technology-enhanced communication, manners and relationships. It will take time to establish behavior patterns that we can live with and still protect our privacy. We are moving from analog to digital.
'Progress is a good thing. I'm sure the wheel had its detractors when it was first rolled out. ‘God gave us feet' ... People are learning, maybe in a haphazard way, but they're learning.'
Online Pollyannas
Price and McFadden freely admit they are technology optimists. Debating in a moral absolute — is online networking good or bad? — is academic, or irrelevant. It's like asking if automobiles are good or bad. Certainly they've redefined the parameters and speed of life, but they also lead to 40,000 to 50,000 deaths every year, in the United States alone. And they're not going away.
Technology just is, they say, and we'd best learn to live with and make the best use of that genie, which is not going back in the bottle.
The ease of using Google is changing how we learn, just as the growing availability of printed matter to middle and lower classes changed schooling in earlier centuries.
'In the old days, you'd find somebody who had a book and pay them to teach from that book,' Price said. As facts and figures became more easily accessible, teachers began teaching students to assess and evaluate content. There's current research showing that our brains are actually changing as a result of our communication patterns.
'I think in time, people will begin to describe their metacognition in such a way, that we will find why blind people have an image of people they meet,' Price said. 'I think that's how we'll tie the old world with the new.'
Prosser thinks future online interactions may move more to visuals and away from text.
'Then again, it may never,' he said. 'We've had videophones forever, and they just don't seem to catch on.'
Probably even farther out there's the metaverse of virtual life, previewed on Second Life and envisioned by novelists such as William Gibson. But while brainwaves are being mapped and guided, the whole body experience still seems many quantum leaps ahead.
Whatever the next big thing might be, 'It will be a surprise and it will come out of left field, and of course it'll get to Alabama about two years after everybody in New York gets it,' Prosser said, laughing.
'It's just gotten better over the years. We thought AOL was a revolution back in the '90s. You never know what's going to catch on. Twitter has been around for four years, but it just came into the national limelight in the last year, once broadcasters caught on.
'Facebook is not the ultimate. It's just the latest.
'It's a global street corner now. Everybody comes out and meets on an evening.'
Quelle: Hughes Cobb, Mark: Social interaction evolves with technology, 02.08.2009, URL:
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