Pondering Proximity

The concept of proximity, and the social boundaries that it both enforces and disperses, fascinates me. The reading by Barry Wellman, Physical Place and Cyberspace: The Rise of Networked Individualism, focused on a few such issues, including the newfound socialization independent of place and group and the appropriation of public space for personal use. This week, to enable my pondering, I've decided to paste in quotes from the article itself, followed by my own thoughts and how this relates to my own experiences...

• Computer-supported communication will be everywhere, but, because it is independent of place, it will be nowhere. The importance of place as a communication site will diminish even more, and the person - not the place, household or workgroup - will become even more of an autonomous communication mode.
  
  It's strange how being 'connected' can also afford us greater freedom. One no longer has to sit by the phone waiting for a call, as they can carry their mobile with them at all times; one no longer needs to wait in the computer-queue at the QUT library, as they will kindly lend you a laptop so you can email from Beadles (or the guild bar) to your heart's content; and one no longer needs to attend lectures (well, law lectures at least) because they are streamed online and you can access them from anywhere at anytime. Place has become less important to our communications, indeed most often when you call people, you have no idea where they are.
  
  
• Another transition has already started. It is the communication-driven shift away from place-based inter-household ties to individualised person-to-person interactions and specialised role-to-role interactions.
  
  Some would argue that this newfound absence of geographical proximity in our personal relations is a bad thing: "people chat to perfect strangers and yet are ignorant of those who live next door", "you can't have a 'real', fulfilling relationship online", "people just don't care anymore". Wellman contends that online relationships can be just as fulfilling as offline relationships, but fulfilling of different needs. Online relationships are often purpose-driven, or in Wellman's conception 'role-to-role, meaning that people will actively seek out, or be sought themselves, to participate in communication exchanges for particular reasons (for example, academics using usenet to discuss the latest chapters in their books. This fulfils a specific purpose, and most users would fulfill their other needs (such as discussing their closet Captain Kirk-lust) through other different, purposed, interactions).
  
  
• Although the telegraph was generally only used for short, high-priority messages, it was the harbinger of communication becoming divorced from transportation.
  
  No longer are geography and temporal discord decisive, limiting factors in communications. Overcoming the time/place difference has been recognized extensively as a major advantage of computer-mediated communications. An example is in fandom. Originally, fans of different nationalities were quite separate. If an episode of a TV show screened in America, American fans were able to communicate about the show through the pre-internet fan media of zines, newsletters, etc, but by the time such media filtered through to other countries by snail mail, most of the discussion was no longer relevant (everyone already knew who shot JR). Now the temporal discord is irrelevant, as the data is stored online, ready to be accessed at any point in time when it is of relevance to the consumer. The internet has also facilitated many international fan-bases, now able to communicate effectively and relevantly through time and space.
  
  
• Science-fiction author William Gibson (the inventor of the term 'cyberspace') believes that in the near future 'people will pay money for something that will make them believe for a while that they are not connected'.
  
  This is already happening. Whether or not people desire to be totally 'dis-connected', there is definite evidence of people wishing to choose when and with whom they connect, as Wellman puts it, 'to maintain anonymity and freedom of choice, many do not want to be always - or often - connected'. Hence the popularity of ICT features such as caller ID, voicemail, and the 'block' or 'away' functions on MSN. For me, sms messaging also falls under this category: sometimes, I really don't want to get in a conversation with someone, and a text message can be a non-committal, non-engaging means of communicating. This quote also makes me think in a 'how-times-change' way about how in the 'old' days, movie screenings were preceded by 'no smoking' advertisements, and now, in addition, they are preceded by 'please turn off your mobile phone' announcements.
  
  
• As mobile phones proliferate, the norms of this inherently person-to-person system foster the intrusion of intensely involving private behaviour into public spaces.
  
  This is what Wellman calls the personalisation of public space, or the appropriation of public space for personal needs. The examples in the article include a girl having a loud (and very personal) conversation on her mobile phone whilst using public transport, and people who listen to personal music players (eg Ipods) whilst in public. The author observes that 'people who withdraw inward in public space are unsettling, their behaviour signalling that their bodies, but not personas, are passing through'. Is it symptomatic of our ever-growing ability to connect that we feel the need to purposely disconnect from our immediate surroundings? Sometimes I feel like I unwittingly consume so much media and receive so many mediated messages (constant checking of emails for uni-related messages, constantly confronted with news headlines on my web browser, constantly barraged by muzak in public places etc) that I definitely feel an urge to switch off. My way of doing so in public places is usually by wearing big, dark sunglasses: I don't have to make eye contact and 'connect' with anyone and it's a physical barrier between me and the world. (And if I'm approached by eager/officious/scary salespeople in shopping centres, I pretend to talk on my mobile. Just don't forget to turn it on 'silent first', I've made that mistake before.)
  
  
• Observing this intense, one-sided conversation was more like observing masturbation than like observing a couple in love.
  
  I don't actually have anything to say about this quote, other than that it is the funniest thing I've read all day. Although it was closely followed by 'the guts of her phone hidden in the Gucci'. It's not often my homework makes me chortle.