Interacting With The Internet

This topic of discussion is a little more interesting to me than some of the others simply because of my relation with it. I've read a few other people's post on the idea and a lot of the conversation starts to lead towards Facebook, Myspace, Instagram etc. and how social networking seems to benefit our overall connectivity, while having a difficult to define negative affect on our face-to-face relationships.

I am one of those few (and socially strange) individuals who've never bothered to jump on the social networking bandwagon (a bit too much sharing for my taste) yet I still find myself, despite not being attached to facebook or some of the other mediums which incite this type of online behaviour, being involved in this spiral of communication that is being dragged away from the physical sphere. Some of my best friends are people I met online who don't even live in the same country- two live in New Zealand, and a few of my "irl" friends and I travelled over there a couple of years back for a holiday.

I think the point I'm getting at here is that the internet has become such an integral part of society, and despite ranging amounts of involvement in it, we all have a stake in the way it progresses as an entity that will continue to affect our social interactions as time goes on. Even for the oddballs who don't have a smartphone, or the social-networking accounts that normally go hand-in-hand with one, the internet has a profound affect on the way they (and I) interact with people, be them friends or strangers- in our day to day lives.

It's difficult to try and define why this might be the case, that the internet is a form of digital quicksand that seems to draw people in regardless of their attempts at resisting. Is it a fear of isolation from not taking part? Connectivity is the buzz word of the times, and the idea of privacy, while many are kicking up a fuss about it, is becoming a thing of the past. A lot of people don't seem to mind, though, by perpetuating the beast and continuing to share each and every event of their daily life.

I think connectivity really is at the heart of everything. We all use the internet as a medium for interaction precisely because we all use the internet as a medium for interaction. Did that make your head hurt? I hope not. Everyone is there, on the other side of our screen our friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, friends of friends, people we've never met are all there able to be reached with little to no difficulty. Someone mightn't be home, or they mightn't pick up the phone, but you can be sure that sooner rather than later they'll check their Facebook wall and realise you want to chat.

Availability. If you want a slice of pizza but there's none in the house, you're far more likely to just walk away and not worry about it than you are if your house is right next door to a pizza store.

What an odd analogy to end this on- just when I thought I was starting to make sense...