The answers my friends- are blowin’in the wind….

While reading Fulk’s article I could hear the distinctively annoying sound of a dial up modem in my head – a subliminal audio reminder as to how dated this article has become in our rapidly evolving wireless world.  Fulk argues that “two key dimensions underlie public goods in interactive communication systems: connectivity and communality.”  The advent of i-mode and blackberries has rendered one of the two components of her argument i.e. connectivity, into a complete non-issue.  Communality however, is still an aspect of interactive communications that is under a lot of scrutiny- as evidenced by both the Wellman and Rheingold readings and their studies of the new behaviors resulting from our ever connected society.  The most interesting question in this ongoing debate was raised by Rheingold when he asked, “has the definition of presence become uncoupled from physical places and reassigned to a social network that extends beyond a single location?”  By citing further examples from the readings and my own observations I will argue that yes, the virtual world has engineered an entirely new community where it is possible to “exist” outside of your actual physical space, removed from the control and social constraints of society- even the person sitting right next to you. 

            This thesis turns ideas about presence on their head and forces one to ask what does it really mean to be somewhere?  The advent of new wireless technologies has enabled people to physically be in a room, but actually be engaged with audiences and conversations far removed from the time and place in which they are actually sitting.  One annoying example of this is the compulsive blackberrying that happens during meetings when executives are present at the meeting, but more engaged with firing off emails then with the person right in front of them.  I always thought it rude, but also interesting that an electronic email could demand immediate attention over a person talking to you from across a conference table.  In this new virtual world physical presence does not guarantee that the person sitting next to you is actually occupying the same environment as you.

            Wellman touches on this as well in his article when he says “internet accounts and mobile phone numbers are person-based and not place-based.”  The idea of connecting to the internet at you home or your office is now just one of the many ways you can access the internet and email and thus enable you to ignore your co-workers during a team meeting while you text message someone.  Wellman made the point best later in the article when he said, “mobile phones, net-connected PDAs, wireless computers, and personalized software foster liberation from place.”  

            This linking of people no matter the time zone or their location has bred a culture of 24/7 accessibility that in my opinion is never good for one’s work/life balance and I suspect if you polled a number of Japanese parents they would agree with you too, but for wholly different reasons.  Rheingold’s article sites a source who believes that “mobile phones triggered an intergenerational power shift in
Japan because they freed youth from ‘the tyranny of the landline shared by inquisitive family members, creating a space for private communication.”  Having an executive ignore you while in a meeting is one thing, but in the highly hierarchal Japanese family structure the new freedom of the “teenage thumb warriors” must have been a tough pill to swallow for many Japanese parents. 

            Individual access to the virtual world not only has broken down many traditional means of parental control, and enabled teens to “construct a localized and portable place of intimacy available from anywhere they are,” ” (Rheingold).  Japanese parents aren’t alone in their concern over this new uncontrollable world, parents around the world are grappling with how this new community fits into the more tangible physical world they are accustomed to.  Rheingold sites another example of Afghans in Pakistan who were “horrified by the ease with which young Moslem boys and girls, who would never have been allowed to be alone together, can now participate in virtual social relationships via mobile phone,” (Rheingold).

            The Botfighters in
Finland provide yet another example of this new virtual yet still quasi physical world that many inhabit on a daily basis.  Ordinary acts that are very much part of the physical tangible world such as driving one’s car, or waiting in line at the store are becoming part of this new hybrid space and further evaporating the distinction between one’s time spent in the world outside of the internet and their life within a connected virtual network.  Or is it as archaic as Fulk to even suggest that such a line even exists anymore…?