New Forms of Personal Connection

       Over the past decade we find ourselves finding eachother a lot easier than we did in the 1990's. Remember the car phone? I remember my dad's old Cadillac had one back in 1990. I honestly thought it was the coolest thing since bright colored shoes. Those were the days...when cell phones needed to be carried around in cases and nobody knew how to use a home computer. Unfortunately (or fortunately) those days are long gone and now people are digitally connected to eachother from nearly anywhere in the world (and it fits in their pocket). Since the emergence of Web 2.0 and new forms of personal connection, people will find it is rather difficult to stay hidden as long as they're stuck to a computer or smart phone. Now we find ourselves communicating nearly all the time but should we be concerned at the way people have resorted to communicating? That texting has become more popular than actually talking face to face. We've all found ourselves in the same situation. We need immediate answers or opinions and choose to text our friends, co-workers, and famly as opposed to actually talking to them over the phone or face to face. But why? To be honest, I have no idea.

      In Nancy Baym's book, "Making New Media Make Sense," she discusses the new emergence of digital mediators that allow people to connect with eachother from anywhere at any time. She explains that there are two different cultural perspectives that this technology may be looked at from. From one side, people might see this as an issue because it is making communication between people more and more shallow, less engaging, and even threaten the sanctity of people's relationships. From the other perspective, it is seen as an easier way to communicate as well as make room for new oppertunities to connect and communicate. Baym argues that either way, people are realizing that this new form of communicating is rapidly changing the way people communicate with eachother through social connections.

      Baym discusses the disappearance of technology through social norms. Once we have held onto a particular peice of technology, it becomes old, worn out, and obsolete. Even still, although this product has lost it's hype, people are constantly using the same method of communication that the product provided. I came across an interesting quote in her book, "When they are new, technologies affect how we see the world, our communities, our relationships, and our selves. They lead to social and cultural reorganization and reflection." (Baym, 2) In a world like ours, we can barely remember what it used to be like when there was no such thing as Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry, or even video games (let alone the awesomeness of multiplayer online). With new media comes new people living in a new world, a world where distance or time is not a factor when someone wants to connect with someone else and where new technology and innovation lead to endless possibilities for Web 2.0 and human interaction. We are inspired to constantly improve, progress, and create for the better of society and for ourselves.

      I think that it is also important to not get caught up with just how addiciting this technology can be. Things like Facebook and Youtube become common distractions and eventually take up most of our time. While Web 2.0 is a machine capable of collecting information, we find ourselves incapable of staying away from it for a short period of time. So comes the struggle for control. Does the machine really control us as much as we'd hate to think? A fitting quote was read from Baym's book: "If negative outcomes can be traced to technological causes, then they can be eliminated with better technology." (Baym 27) Does this mean that we've trapped ourselves in a world of machines? That we've become so addicted to technology that we are physically unable to function without it? This all seems a little far-fetched but it really makes you ask yourself how long we could go without cell phones or internet. We did it in the past didn't we? Wouldn't we be able to do it again? ...No. We gone too far down the rabbit hole...and I think we're totally F'd if somehow we found ourselves totally disconnected. I'd have to agree with Nancy when she says more technology is the only way out because we, too, are like machines; machines programmed to communicate by the most efficient and fastest way we know how. There's no way we'd be able to suddenly quit technology and Web 2.0 cold turkey. However, like our technology, there is no looking back. There is only what the future of Web 2.0 hold for us.