My friend came by my office the other day, and I realized how long it had been since I'd seen him in person. He didn't look like his instant message icon anymore.
Staying in touch with scattered and absent friends online is great and I love it, but this pal is a free-lancer who I've worked with for years on the job.
He works from his home that's about a mile from my office as the crow flies.
Yet we communicate mostly by IM and e-mail, utilizing various resources to move large files we're working on back and forth.
We just happened to have several to deal with this week. "Burn a CD," my friend happened to say. "And I'll pick it up."
Web 2.0 is great, introduces us to new friends and reunites us with old friends scattered by time and distance, yet I find myself wondering if some of Clifford Stoll's old ZDNet editorials about the importance of walking on grass once in a while aren't even more relevant.
We shouldn't fail to notice the world beyond the office window whether it be the grass or the people walking on it.
An IM's great but a handshake is even better if it's possible.
4 comments:
I am about to head out of here and hook up with buds who I see about six times a year. We eat, see movies, sit around and talk politics and nonsense. We've been friends for close to forty years.
Yeah, the online stuff is wonderful, but the flesh is the thing.
I don't know if you or anyone you know did the online dating thing. What astonished me was how different the feel of people from the presence and intensity of online.
I was talking with Lana about this last night, and was saying, although I'm often good with mostly online social contact that I'd always want to get together with friends for real on occassion. That's what is so much fun about Howard Days, actually seeing the people I've corresponded with for real. I've also found that online assholes are often much nicer in reality.
You know that's true, Charles, you often find people being bolder at a keyboard than in real life.
Sounds like fun, Stewart. A good political discussion is always stimulating, and a good movie.
Yeah, flesh is nice sometimes. I used to hang out with friends on livejournal for a while. I ended up knowing much more about their personal lives and their mental states, but found I was actually seeing them less and less... Maybe Web 3.0 will come with flesh-like Wii controllers that remold, grip, and squeal based on whatever the person on the other end of the internets is doing. I for one, can't wait!
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