A la Carrie Bradshaw, I propose to begin offering a weekly-ish colum to you scarcely populated readers out there. While I'll likely leave big questions like "What is the meaning of life," "Where do I fit in the universe," and "Will we ever find out Mr. Big's real name" to the experts, I will take up pertinent and enthralling topics like last week's muffins and tomorrow's toast.
To begin this column, I offer the inaugural question (as already posed by Anil Dash), along with my two cents on the subject:
In today's system of person-based contact instead of location-based contact, are we starved for random social interactions?
First, allow me to explain. If someone wants to get ahold of me nowadays, they have four primary options.
They can:
1. Send me an email
2. Call my cell phone
3. Send me an instant message
4. Comment on this blog entry
In every one of these instances, contact will be made directly with me. No mother to shout down the stairs, no roommate to misplace the message, no receptionist to filter the call.
So why is this strange? In the past, you had to "hang on while I find them" and make small talk with someone you barely knew. This interactions sometimes yielded the most wonderful results. I established relationships with friends' parents and got to know their roommates much better. That just isn't the case anymore.
In her article, Ms. Dash argues that a loss of "accidental connectivity" isolates us and diminishes the human experience. I don't buy it.
We have new and innovative ways to establish contact with strangers. Friendster is an excellent example. My person network is huge, and connected through a mere 13ish friends. Also, I ride the same train almost every day. I see many of the same people, and I occassionally talk to some of them. Ever try and call someone back on your cell phone and accidentily get a different person? Yeah, that too.
So I think that "accidental connectivity" still happens. We may need to go out of our way a little more to be receptive to it, but that doesn't change the fact that we establish new relationships all the time.
Flown by mariposa at 03:04 PM on January 16, 2004
