[url=http://blogs.hbr.org/samuel/2010/09/the-dirty-truth-about-digital.html]Source[/url]
[release]Last year it was the staycation. This year it's the digital fast. "How I unplugged" — from Twitter, from a Blackberry, from the Internet, or [url=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/08/02/technology/unplugged.html?ref=technology]at the behest of the New York [I]Times[/I][/url] — is the new "what I did on my summer vacation."
As people trade stories about how they survived, or even thrived, offline, I'm troubled by the underlying narrative, that our ability to unplug is necessary to prove that we're not Internet addicts. We're supposed to demonstrate our grasp of human relationships by our ability to relate face-to-face, as well as online. We're supposed to show that we can be present by being absent from the web.
Scan the diaries of the unplugged and you'll find them self-described as "[url=Scan the diaries of the unplugged and you'll find them self-described as "the journal of a recovering addict", writing about offline vacations as "time away from the madness." But why do we have to describe our time offline as if we're going into some kind of recovery program? The very idea of a digital "cleanse" implies that our time online makes us dirty; the idea of a digital "fast" suggests that there's a virtue in going without.]the journal of a recovering addict[/url]", writing about offline vacations as "[url=http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/lifehack-challenge-24-hour-digital-fast.html]time away from the madness.[/url]" But why do we have to describe our time offline as if we're going into some kind of recovery program? The very idea of a digital "cleanse" implies that our time online makes us dirty; the idea of a digital "fast" suggests that there's a virtue in going without.
Here's another framing: [I]We plug in because we like it.[/I]
When we're online — not just online, but participating in social media -- we're meeting some of our most basic human needs. No, not the need to read the latest Lindsay Lohan update.
Needs like creative expression. The need to connect with other people. The need to be part of a community. Most of all, the need to be seen: not in a surface, aren't-you-cute way, but in a deep, so-that's-what's-going-on-inside-your-head way. Put yourself out there online, as you truly are and with what you truly think, and you can have that experience of being seen.
It's the very fact that the Internet [I]can[/I] meet so many fundamental needs, significantly if not completely, that gets people nervous. We are accustomed to defining our human experience in terms of what happens face-to-face: I want you to look me in the eye, bend my ear, scratch my back if I scratch yours. Those aren't metaphors: they're reflective of the way our culture sees human connection in fundamentally physical terms. Which made a lot of sense until five or ten years ago.
Now our connections live online as much as off. We can have meaningful emotional or intellectual contact with people that we rarely or never encounter in person. I can bond with you, listen to you and trade favors with you, even if you never look me in the eye, bend my ear or scratch my back.
As much as we now live that reality, we haven't fully integrated it. Talk to anyone who spends more than a few hours a week on social networking sites, and you're virtually guaranteed to hear that they've had deeply meaningful conversations or formed profoundly important relationships with people they've met online. But just like when you're falling in love for the first time — "is this love?" — we're in a period of self-doubt and self-interrogation about our budding emotional lives online. Is this a "real" relationship? Is this a valid way of connecting?
We're not sure, or we're reluctant to admit that it feels real, because we are trained on connection inherently requiring physical presence. So what do we do? To test our virtual relationships and budding feelings, we go offline. We fast. Disconnect, free ourselves from the hypnotic powers of the screen to know if what feels so compelling online is a meaningful experience or some kind of digital illusion.
But what most digital fasters describe the experience to be like is not a cleansing, or some detoxification — finally, I'm free of that corrupting Internet! — but rather a realization of how online and offline lives are integrated. One. A newly holistic life that includes time for both plugging in and unplugging, in equally conscious and intentional ways.
If unplugging needs to be a part of our approach to living and working digitally, it's through the daily practice of [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=techno]taking downtime[/url], of [url=http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/12/can_a_smart_phone_make.html]opting for reflection rather than distraction[/url]. If longer-term digital fasts can remind you how to integrate offline moments back into your daily life, that's great. But you don't need a digital fast to justify meeting your needs online, and you don't need to unplug in order to justify plugging back in.[/release]
A very interesting article I wanted to share with all of FP.
I liked one of the comments of the article:
[QUOTE][I]It is all about balance. The digital world is a reality. The classic world or relationships is reality. Not only do we have to play in both, we also need to allocate time to think. So again, it is all about balance.[/I][/QUOTE]
QFT.
Really interesting read. Thanks for the article.
This reminds me that I twitter too much.
[QUOTE=Paravin;24709512]This reminds me that I twitter too much.[/QUOTE]
Just remember, everything with moderation :P
[editline]01:19PM[/editline]
As for the "being seen" part, my virtual self has merged with my IRL self, so if any of you guys had the chance to actually meet me, you'll notice I sound just the same as I do in here...
But I'm sure that most (if not all) people here at FP are more themselves in here, speaking their minds completely free from any kind of restraints than in real life...
I've always used myself in anything whether it be role playing in Dungeons and Dragons to creating what my Playstation Home guy looks like. I've always used my likeness and who I am in games like Mass Effect and Fallout. That's probably the reason why I'm usually full paragon or the last best chance of the wasteland. Because in reality, I wouldn't have the balls to be an asshole to someone without an absolutely good reason.
Hell, my avatars on forums are either the real me or something that looks close to me.
i like to keep my internet and real lives separate. i can do things here without affecting things there, and vise versa.
Nothing new in this article that people didn't already know years ago.
This is why I worked in construction.
I never did understand the point of "unplugging". It sounds pretentious to say and do as such anyways.
All of my friends live an hour away from my house so the internet is the only way I can talk to them.
Unplugging isn't a cure for everything.
I always tell myself that I could easily live without the internet and I only use it because it is there, but to be honest I can't imagine myself really living life without the internet and it not being shit/boring.
[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;24714873]I always tell myself that I could easily live without the internet and I only use it because it is there, but to be honest I can't imagine myself really living life without the internet and it not being shit/boring.[/QUOTE]
This.
And I only hang out on irc and facepunch. I never use facebook or twitter or anything like that either.
The only 3 sites I ever browse are Facepunch, YouTube, Facebook and the occasional TV show link...
This made me ask myself if i am the same in and out of the internet.
Due to the insanity of my mind i haven't yet reached a precise answer but it made me realise
I am much more mature inside the internet (while i also notice how people are immature inside it and normal outside, perhaps this is the hidden meaning for why facepunch, and therefore me due to psicological bandwagon, don't like the emote ''XD'' for example, it sounds childish)
Now it makes me feel bad, of how i grew up connected to the internet and not SO connected physically to people.
The internet is part of the world now. Why should we act like we don't need it?
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