Back in college, there was a popular class called “Arts 15: Introduction to the popular performing arts” — otherwise known as the history of rock and roll. The professor was, shall we say, opinionated. One test question that is still stuck in my craw follows:
The greatest rock and roll band of all time was:
What is social about social networking? That is a question I’ve been asking myself for a while. There is a lot of interaction with the computer and by extension other people who are using their computers but it is far from truly a “social” experience, right?
I don’t really know where I stand on these questions. I have used electronic communications as part of my everyday existence for so long that I really cannot imagine a life unplugged. Much of that communication has been for business but a substantial portion has been with friends and family. That sounds like the very definition of social to me. And yet there is something distinctly unsocial (perhaps even antisocial) about relationships that are purely based on electronic communications — the complete lack of physical face to face human interaction.
When TWTTR first emerged it was an SMS service with the simple idea of enabling friends to let each other know what they were up to. But that was geeky and boring and unprofitable and so now a significant number of tweets have nothing in them about what a person is doing. Most of them have a url and a lot of them are intended to sell something. That is Twitter in 2010. (And yes this blog uses twitter to get traffic too.)
Facebook was fun at first — catching up with people who I’d not talked to in nearly 20 years was cool. Finding some people who I was sure I would never hear from again was awesome. Even the games were fun at first. But then it settled down and the games and apps began to get old. There was a growing sense that the lil green patch couldn’t possibly be doing anything to help the environment. And gradually there was a realization that maybe the reason I’d lost touch with some of those “old friends” was because we really didn’t have all that much to say to each other anymore.
Suddenly I find that most of my facebook time is with people that I do have real relationships with. But that we are no longer calling each other or even emailing each other. Suddenly online social activity is replacing REAL social activities! And that doesn’t seem so social.
And one more thing…I was not a fan of my high school when I was 17 why on earth would I become a fan on Facebook?
I work from the house at least two days a week and I would not give that up at this point for much. However, there are times when having the home office in the house can be a bit problematic — such as when Mr. Grey bursts into the office while I’m on a conference call. For some time now, I’ve been wondering if it would be feasible to build an office in a shed. It turns out, I’m not the first person to think of this and there is actually a bit of a disorganized movement in the UK centered around working from home in a shed. I have to say that I find the concept of Shedworking highly intriguing, but I’m not sure if it would work for me.
Positives:
Negatives:
I certainly haven’t thought this all the way through, but it is an interesting idea. And perhaps one worth exploring. Maybe when we replace the dilapidated shed that is nearing 20 years old, I should double it’s size. Of course, then it would be a barn really…Maybe I could have livestock.
I have felt a strong urge to get behind the camera lately, but I have not been doing so. I am seriously considering a 365 project. I’ve had a few ideas about it for a while. The first idea was to pick one shot and take it every day at the same time. Somehow that sounds like it will get awful boring awfully quick. The second idea was to pick a single time of the day and take time to capture a shot at that specific time regardless of where I am. That could be interesting if I were more mobile, but most days I’m in exactly the same place at exactly the same time. A third option is to simply commit to making one solid capture on a daily basis. This is what I think I will endeavor to do.
I’m now trying to decide on when to begin.
Last night at 8:09 PM Eastern, I tweeted:
making applesauce from old apples, mentally transitioning into a week at the office
This morning at 2:44 AM Eastern, Motts began following me on twitter. I’m fairly certain that nobody at Motts is actually reading my tweets. I’m also fairly certain that no person at Motts is actually paying enough attention to tweets about apples or applesauce to have made a conscious decision to start following me because of my tweet.
What I suspect is that Motts has some BI type application that is reading one of the many rss feeds that exist for twitter and then following people via the twitter API.
Now, I’ve got no misconceptions about my privacy or lack thereof as a result of my choosing to use twitter or any other service or site, but no matter how you slice it, this is disturbing. It makes you wonder what other company, government, or organized crime group is reading tweets.
And to think, Motts just thought that maybe I’d follow them so that they could sell me applesauce instead of me making it from scratch.
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