Not interconnected

[andrewducker]

Interconnected had something to say on the subject of lessening social contact and the fact that nobody knows the people living next door any more.

I think it's fairly simple - I don't need to be very social, so I'm not. If you're self sufficient, then you don't need to form more than perfunctory bonds with those around you. This is, of course, more true in cities, where all of your needs are commoditised rather than in less urban environments, where you have to actually interact with the provider of your needs.

Also, in ye olden days I'd only have those people around me to be social with. Nowadays my social circle is largely composed of people I'm unlikely to meet, due to the internet. This is fantastic in some ways (I'd never normally be able to meet people with interests like that) and terrible in others( I'm not making social contact with those around me).

Comments

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

As geeky as it sounds, I want to get more involved in online communities. I love all my friends, but far too often I'll say something and everyone in the room looks at me like I was peddling kiddie-porn (e.g. Sinatra rocks/Tina Turner is the sexiest woman ever to have lived/Eminem is socially aware etc...).
We are now empowered to become incredibly individualized through the almost infinite avenues of development that are open to us. As we spread out interest further beyond our local environment, so it becomes harder to still relate to it.

I think the problem at the moment with online interactions is that they are mainly exclusive of your attention versus the people physically around you(as I found out to my cost). Possibly the next step will be to roll out audio/visual conferencing technology so that two(or more) rooms full of people could all interact without having the current 'keyboard bottleneck'. And it would deal with the whole 'lack of body-language' issue that there is with the internet.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The radioactivity argument was a bit wacky. I was expecting UFOs or Lyndon LaRouche to be mentioned at any point. As for the issue in question. I'm exceedingly happy. I have no intrinsic interest in knowing my neighbors. I'm fairly far out on the social fringe in a great many ways (pagan, bi, poly, gamer, ultra-left, SF-geek, among others) and I honestly only wish to have significant interactions with others who share at least some of these traits.

Before the internet, I had considerably fewer friends and romantic relationships simply because of the rarity of these traits in the general population. Now I am far more social, and I don't have to deal with people outside of my chosen social group in order to find more folk like me.

I realized more than a year ago that everyone that I'd met in the last decade (including imester), was met though the internet or similar non-direct media (in imester's case, a penpal list in a newsletter for the Mercedes Lackey fan club) or was someone who was the partner or extremely close friend of someone I met though the internet.

It seems obvious to me that much of the First World will split up into a series of small and increasingly isolated sub-cultures.

I recently read and article that said that cable TV in the US has radically changed the TV-watching patterns of teens, so that almost all watch primarily niche-market programming for their own particular niche.

Some people are dismayed by this change, I greatly prefer it. Large homogeneous cultures have little room for people on the fringe and are generally bland and uninteresting. I find the idea of many dozen (or more) separate sub-cultures seems far richer and more wonderful.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Why should I know my neighbours? Living in the same street means very very little. It doesn't give much hope that you have anything in common (except perhaps a rough income bracket and that only of you moved in at about the same time). The less I know about most people the better :-)

I don't do gossip/trivial conversations very well, so for me to be interested in talking to somebody then we have to probably share at least one hobby or interest.

I can also do without much socialisation, and don't often tend to be in need of emotional support - in fact having a shoulder to cry on seems to me just to have prolonged the agony in the past.