A Manifesto for Slow Communication (or, how the Internet destroys your life)

[webfreak08]

Interesting read.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574358643117407778.html

 

[SenseiSteve]

Certainly was an interesting read, but I couldn't disagree with it more. The author went very indepth but didn't present a sound nor strong arguement to prove his point. Certainly some people get addicted to certain technologies and it affects their business and personal lives, but by and large, advances in technology have propelled the masses to broader awareness and greater good.

 

[ldcdc]

To a good degree, I agree with the entry there. We no longer live anywhere near the natural way we were supposed to, and this includes communication. Will this present day behavioral and communication revolution be seen as 100% positive 100, or 200 years from now? I doubt that by then, some unseen costs that we're already paying, will not be accurately noticed and measured. Be it more anti-social behavior, obesity, eyesight problems, or general lack of fitness, something will stand out as a significant unintended effect. Perhaps the end will more than justify these costs, that mitigating solutions will be found and promoted, but I cannot help but feel a bit sad knowing that some of the old values are vanishing, all fall into disuse.

An email will never be quite as precious, as personal, as the old-fashioned handwritten letter, and to think of courtship done over IM, especially when you could see one another, is really quite sad.

 

[webfreak08]

The WSJ seems to have something for face-to-face encounters.

How Facebook Ruins Friendships
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204660604574370450465849142.html

 

[Zachary McClung]

The WSJ seems to have something for face-to-face encounters.

How Facebook Ruins Friendships
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204660604574370450465849142.html

I think the Wall Streeet Journal is just ticked about their readership in paper form declining. They are using scare tactics to make people read news papers again.

From the standpoint of being legally blind, the Internet has allowed me to compete more equally then in the real world. It allows me to find news, I would have never found. It allows me to have a career, I would have never had. While it maybe illegal to discriminated against someone with a disability, you better bet it happens. As soon as they find out about it, it then becomes a time clock of when they will find something to terminate you for. Or, if your honest in a interview about a disability they will simply make up a sad excuse for the fact that your not what they were looking for.

I now make more and compete in an industry that in the non technology based field I would have never been able too.

On the flip side, I hate clients wanting everything all the time. That is one disadvantage is it no longer because 9 am to 5 pm because e-mail is always there, smartphones can deliver e-mails around the world now, and instant messengers make client easily accessible when on personal time too.

 

[SenseiSteve]

Of course, we don't live in a perfect world - and the one truth you can bank is that technology will continue to evolve. Lamenting about the days of the horse and buggy won't bring them back. I should know - I was around before TV was broadcast 24 hours a day. By and large, the Internet has made all of us members of a global community. And while there's good and bad to most things, the sharing of information benefits all of us on so many levels. What other resource (the Internet) in the history of mankind has more effectively transended international boundaries and ideologies? I would have rather read an article about balance and opportunity.