I’m just messing around here with a WordPress plug-in called Twitter Tools. In theory, it will send notice of a blog post here to twitter. I have Twitter, in turn, set to update my status with Facebook. Entries in Twitter get posted to a sidebar here. I think it is also set to do a daily summary of twitter entries as a blog post. Probably this is overkill, and certainly I have an overdeveloped sense of self to think that folks give a $*(& about any of this.
More seriously, however, I am interested in what I’ve heard described as “ambient intimacy” and the contribution of tools like Facebook and Twitter to such “ambient intimacy.” The general idea, as I understand it, is that you become better acquainted with people through a lot of individually trivial, low impact interactions. This sort of thing might be beneficial to individuals who don’t get a lot of natural interaction on that level due to the current structure of our society. Many of us get up, go to work, interact with people at work in a limited, job-oriented sort of way, then go home. At home, we (hopefully) have some good, quality interaction with our families, but don’t tend to have the time, resources, or opportunities to just go interact with others in our community in a low pressure, unfocused kind of way. The public square isn’t as vibrant as it maybe once was. Folks don’t sit out on the front porch (if they are lucky enough to have one), and in any case, there isn’t much foot traffic that would lead to casual conversation in any case.
But, dress it up as I may, I’m basically just playing with geeky toys here.
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