Digital Intimacy

I was browsing news articles when I stumbled on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Interesting snippets from the article:

"...cannot simply walk away from her online life, because the people she knows online won’t stop talking about her, or posting unflattering photos. She needs to stay on Facebook just to monitor what’s being said about her. This is a common complaint I heard, particularly from people in their 20s who were in college when Facebook appeared and have never lived as adults without online awareness. For them, participation isn’t optional. If you don’t dive in, other people will define who you are. So you constantly stream your pictures, your thoughts, your relationship status and what you’re doing — right now! — if only to ensure the virtual version of you is accurate, or at least the one you want to present to the world." <-- I lol'd. But, it's actually fairly accurate.

“It’s just like living in a village, where it’s actually hard to lie because everybody knows the truth already,” Tufekci said. “The current generation is never unconnected. They’re never losing touch with their friends. So we’re going back to a more normal place, historically. If you look at human history, the idea that you would drift through life, going from new relation to new relation, that’s very new. It’s just the 20th century.”

"If anything, it’s identity-constraining now... You can’t play with your identity if your audience is always checking up on you. I had a student who posted that she was downloading some Pearl Jam, and someone wrote on her wall, †˜Oh, right, ha-ha — I know you, and you’re not into that.’ ” She laughed. “You know that old cartoon? †˜On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog’? On the Internet today, everybody knows you’re a dog! If you don’t want people to know you’re a dog, you’d better stay away from a keyboard.”

"It is easy to become unsettled by privacy-eroding aspects of awareness tools. But there is another — quite different — result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves. Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness. (Indeed, the question that floats eternally at the top of Twitter’s Web site — “What are you doing?” — can come to seem existentially freighted. What are you doing?) Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they’re trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form."

It's all so true-- thoughts that I hadn't put into words.
Hope you guys check out the article, and post what you think. ^__~

So this gives me reasons behind me sitting on the computer all day sweet.

huh, cybering.

You are going to be a Marine damn it! Go out there disembowel someone and weave a basket out of their entrails while screaming the lyrics to "Halls Of Montezuma" while you do it! Then you'll get drunk, have sex with 50 women then go to sleep to get up and do it again tomorrow!

Semper Fi!

I think this constantly connect issue is a real problem but, this OP is very true which kind of sucks. Sometimes you don't want to be yourself.

Oh damn. That's the funniest shit I've seen all day. XD

Maybe I don't connect with those people on there since I usually get online and usually don't give much thought to the thoughts of other people. I mostly get on to get my kicks.

Heh, I used to be kind of like that with the updating of social networks and such. Then I figured out no one cared, then I found out I didn't care, so I stopped. Deleted my myspace and facebook, it's not worth anything anymore. I have a livejournal somewhere that I update for myself and no one knows about. Social networks are only worth anything if you have people to be social with, I worked too much for that lol

...at least that's one less thing you're wasting time on lol :]
I used to be addicted to fb, but now it's ugly and confusing.

People get too into it.

gb2 eharmony

Seriously, nobody should be on myspace or facebook. They should be working and making a living. Enjoying life how it was meant to be enjoyed. With other people. Not some computer.

Ok, so back to Irc? K?

I have a feeling that even in the marines I will be a outcast. But I shall wait and see what Basic does to me. I also find it funny that since I started working out I have been getting violent urges like punching people alot.

The thing about the marines is they don't allow outcasts. they're bad for morale, and it's easier for conformists to stick together

Then I will just have to get them all to start watching anime or simply ignore the fact that I do. I just got back from my recruiting office and doing drills with the rifle is hard as fuck and it hurts because you have to smack the rifle and make it sound like its metal hitting metal.

yikes. my grandfather was a marine, and I've heard similar horror stories from him as well.

They break you down and rebuild you from the ground up. While they don't like outcasts they basically mean the maverick type. They don't want some dumb ass to think since he's a marine he's G.I. Fucking Joe and get his head blown off. Watching someone get their head blown off that's bad for morale.

Stupid. Very very stupid. The Internet can be used as a communication protocol perhaps, but when you post that much defining crap about yourself, you leave the door wide open.

For people like me. If you have a Facebook, I can easily obtain your whereabouts just from your accepted friends. And if you're truthful and stupid, you might have a short enough password to figure out...

So I wouldn't recommend using them. It just makes it one less step for someone to look you up if you piss them off. Seriously, they are data mines. Not that there aren't other ways, but social networking is one easy one. ;3