Always On

This blog begins just before dawn. I've been lying in bed wondering about how technologies are changing us as human beings, and how the recent jolt of 'always on' culture has altered us as a species forever.

We now have an exhilarating level of connectivity, but we've also lost our privacy in so many ways. I'd like to explore this space further - from the impact that it has on us socially and emotionally, and to also investigate methods and techniques that can be employed so that we can control our technologies (not vice versa).

As a child I knew that there was a limited window of access to the information and entertainment I could get from my TV. Television stations would start broadcasting in the morning, and then they'd stop broadcasting around midnight. The remainder of the time I could look at my TV, but all I'd see was a test pattern. A letter could take weeks to deliver. I had to wait for the latest albums to arrive at the record store. People went from door to door selling encyclopedias. Telephones were attached to cords, which were attached to walls. It all sounds positively archaic now.

But now I can wake in the middle of the night and access vast libraries while streaming video and chatting to someone I've never met. I can explore a virtual world surrounded by characters which are the manifestations of real people. I could participate in an online war with a mass of other live participants. There are so many benefits, but there are also side-effects.

Blackberrys and phones that interupt dinner or steal attention away from physical interactions. Status messages in our email clients or social networking sites that reveal our presence to others. Personalized ring tones that transform public spaces into impersonal cacophonies. Private phone calls that are blurted out into the 'publicsphere' without an regard for the verbal and psychological assault on others. An Internet that's always on, so that I can wake up in the middle of the night and start a recursive blog about it as I am right now, with the possibility of you stumbling across it and reading it, even though you and I have probably never met, and probably never will.

Our new 'always on' culture is as much about evolution as it is about revolution. These new superpowers we've been endowed with are both incredible and complex. Previously we were told, "The pen is mightier than the sword," but now the pen is online and it's on steroids.

Image by Egvvnd. Some Rights Reserved.