More on social networking -Ambient Awareness
That documentary a few posts ago and several articles I read got me thinking. Social networks are not portraying the true image of the person involved. What the person tells about him/herself on a website cannot represent the true self of the person. It is merely a projection of the person he/she desires to be. As he doesn’t see any true persons in his surroundings he himself becomes untrue. This projection is then updated frequently and his friends in the digital world start to put together the puzzle of his created persona. And everybody else follows. No one is interested if you had a taco buffet today and then took a shower. But these tiny fragments of information create your online persona.
Clive Johnson argues that this is good for real life conversations. When persons engaged in a social event talk, they skip the chit-chat and move on to deeper, more meaningful topics. I disagree. The chit-chat is an ice-breaker, it makes the awkwardness of the initial meeting disappear. For example, if you were travelling and meet someone right after your return, you obviously want to tell everything about your experience to this person. If, however, you have been constantly updating your digital self, and the person you are talking to is included in your friend list, they already the basics of your experiences, like where have you been, have enjoyed your stay in there, etc.. In this sort of conversation you are skipping the introduction completely, you are not introducing the persons involved, you are not describing the location, the mood of the story is not set, you are just skipping to the details. Imagine a book without any mood or description of the characters. It’s like reading a scientific article, or in the worst case: a list of things. Boring.