Digitally active, physically reserved: a formula for efficacy?
June 18th, 2009A friend sent me this quote from G.K. Chesterton that appeared Orthodoxy (available here for free):
It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but to human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity, if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous. And this which is true of the apparent physical bustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect. Most of the machinery of modern language is labor-saving machinery; and it saves mental labor very much more than it ought.
Certainly the bustle of the street cannot be wholly attributed to inactivity, as the distribution and sales of goods are just as necessary as the production. Still, it is interesting to consider the great number of negative consequences that are directly or indirectly caused by our quest to make life easier. Most of the examples that come to mind have to do with transportation: street widenings, car dependency, surface parking lots, international energy policy decisions, etc. But just as streets were once thought in terms of “lines of communication,” I now wonder how much of what we do on the internet is improving life and how much of it is actually limiting our time spent living life more effectively in other ways. Certainly the internet has been a blessing while away in Boston, giving me the opportunity to stay engaged with people in Oklahoma City that share my interests. Still, perhaps we should not be so dependent on the internet for this discourse. As soon as I get back to Oklahoma City, I hope I will commit at least some of the time I currently devote to internet community in all its forms, to creating really opportunities for engagement. Right now my list of internet community “machines” includes: email, twitter, facebook, blog, linkedin, etc; along with a range of other academic, professional communities I try to keep up with. I am not talking of abandoning the internet by any stretch, rather I am considering what an appropriate balance might be.
What do you think? What communities are you involved with on the internet? How about face-to-face in Oklahoma City? I wonder what physical communities exists that resemble the community found here or at OKCCentral.com. I really think this blog is useful in many aspects, but I beleive that real breakthroughs are still more likely to take place with regular face-to-face discussions.
June 18th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Blair,
You said it, man. I was just thinking about this very issue as I rode my bike home from work in the rain. I was thinking how exhilarating it is to ride a bike in the rain, how very alive it makes a person feel, how dangerous and thrilling it is, and I was thinking about this in the context of Facebook, which I’ve just joined. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time hunting down old friends and colleagues and schoolmates who are now flung all over the United States, and I’ve gathered them into one little space known as my “home.” It feels so intimate, everyone all together there, posting their ruminations on my “wall” for me to read. Sadly this does not happen often enough in real life.
And so my question is, do social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter help or hurt local communities? Before the these things existed, before the car, before railroads, it really mattered where people lived. But each new technology makes it less and less vital to “commune” where you live. Who cares if you have a walkable neighborhood with cafes, parks, and meeting places when you have a customizable meeting place online. I fear this is the unexpected consequence of Facebook. It will be your task as the first generation of city planners in the “online social networking” era to figure out how to use these technologies to enhance urban spaces instead of ripping them apart.
On the other hand, though, look at what Twitter has done for the protesters in Iran: in the face of a ban on international journalism and in the discontinuation of Internet service in many areas, young Iranians have used their cell phones and Twitter to keep the world informed of what is happening. This is truly remarkable.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Great stuff.
You’re absolutely right about how the situation in Iran is highlighting the incredible power of Twitter and other social networks. The power for good is tremendous. The more I think about it, the more I feel the analogy of the car is an appropriate one. A car is a very useful machine that can enrich life in many ways, and yet, if everybody becomes dependent on this single mode (or medium) of travel alone, then society as a whole suffers. The problems is that we never did a very good job of integrating the car into our cities in a way that made sense holistically. This is still a problem that needs regular attention, and I guess now the integration of social media into cities is something that will also require a lot of thought.