Virtual Presence

Perhaps I'm just a little slow, but I do think this modern technology and www and stuff are quite amazing, especially things like IM services: Messenger, Skype etc. I wonder what effect will they have on our social life and interrelational aspects of our being.

It's quite amazing that as I sit here in our living room, I'm simultaneously - virtually present - with friends all over the places. It's wonderful of course, that's why I show up through the services, but at the same time, it takes certain amount of capacity - in a way it's like being in public. Not that it would matter, but it's quite different to what our culture has lately experienced. For the latest decades at least, the move has been towards smaller private units, households and families and a growing separation from the neighbors, etc. But now, here we are, just a click away from a whole group of people.

It appears, though, that some of the folk has recently been offline quite a bit. Perhaps I have dropped off from the development and keep using wrong services, or then they've got excited about the appear offline button. The latter I consider being unfair, it compares to peeping behind the window at your friends house. So, expose yourselves, all you peepers.

Well, liberty rules, anybody can appear as they like, but I show up once in awhile, wondering the effects of being online, and fascinated about the modern tech.