A little too close: or not?
As a blogger, a tweeter, and indulger of various forms of mediated connectivity I enjoyed reading this New York Times article on digital intimacy.
Perhaps most enjoyable to me: the interviewee’s accounts of a sense of intimacy through experiencing the minutia of contact’s everyday life. Also of fascination is the decorating of the mundane; that people are motivated to speak of their daily lives in a way that demands attention or is entertaining to an audience. Ideas of with whom and how we connect are shifting and social circles are bubbling and expanding in ways that we are not used to and we’re clumsy with it for now. The article wisely points to the unlikely circumstances that have followed increased disclosure of personal information: trouble with parents, coaches, employers, ex-boyfriends and others airing or seeing the dirty laundry of people they are close to or whose lives they can affect. Perhaps the most insightful point to the article, whether we choose to participate or not, our identities and lives are now highly likely to be affected by digital socializing.
