Scott Heiferman of
MeetUp.com offers interesting quotes on
his blog... several of which seem apropos to the topic of this blog and in line with our experience of hosting
Front Porch Forum in Chittenden County...
Andrew Mason: "Inaction stems from a pragmatic judgment that participating doesn’t matter. Not apathy."
So how can we use our new and pending connectedness in Vermont to make participation matter to Vermonters?
Daniel Goleman: "While there are certainly arguments for staying connected to those we care about while we are at a distance, there is always a trade-off with the distractedness this wisp of an information stream induces, drawing our attention from people in the here and now."
So all that Facebooking with distant old pals means there's less of me available for my local community? Go figure.
Jeff Pulver: "twitter... is the platform I go to when I am in a mood to communicate with others... "
...it's shocking that this piece was written without even a nod to the absurdity & risk of our March Toward Total Screenlife. Real-time communication is free & easy, so why have "real-enough time communication"? When you want to say 'good morning' or are in a mood to communicate with others, why not arrange your life so it's F2F (eg. a workplace, people you live with, a breakfast club, ?)? Are the people within X miles not good enough? As I quoted the other day, "The physical world is very high bandwidth."
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2 comments:
Michael, I love the Scott Heiferman quote about the physical world being very high bandwidth!
I am fairly new to the Facebook scene. It is nice because it has reconnected me with some old friends who don't live around here.
But I was at a party last night in the physical world surrounded by old and new Vermont friends and it was far more fun than facebook.
I'm thinking of deleting myself from Facebook and Link'd In. I just don't seem to go there very often, and feel bad every time I ignore another e-mail inviting me to "connect" with another person. I really like the idea of working collaboratively online, or organizing neighborhood events, sharing resources, etc. through FPF. But...for me, for social interaction...physical, face to face is the way to go!
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