What? What is this...in person thing you speak of?

What? Talk in person?

                I bet most people on social media knows the answer to this since thing like myspace.com (a site of the past) and Facebook (the current obsession) has become so normalized in our daily lives.  Today, our cellphones are stuck in our hands by some sort of invisible force.  In  Public Culture: The Social Internet by Zeynep near the end, he speaks of how kids are resentful of their parents attention being taken away by their phones.  While I admit that, yes, adults are on their phones a lot, if you look around…kids are never without it.  I will say that it is probably because, just like sites like facebook and twitter, it has become normalized to always have it.  At the dinner table, in class, talking to other people, the phone is always there and it’s the parents that are annoyed.

            When we think of interacting with other people in what sense do you think of?  Do you think of face to face interactions or do you think of going home and logging onto your favorite site?  Zeynep suggests that many people are intimidated by the face to face, instead of reaching out to friends online.  There will always be those shy types, and the socially needy types (The ones who feel the utter compulsion to overshare) and the drama lovers.....all sorts.

 

Perhaps we as a society, need to find a happy middle.  A way to find a new sort of balance in our lives.