Has the Internet-- and Our Concerns about Privacy and Anonymity-- Caused us all to Disconnect?
So here we are, creating content and building a community on a social site built around a cryptocurrency named Steem.
"Comma" Butterfly in the sun
On a broader scale, one of the "selling points" of cryptocurrencies seems to be that they allow people to remain relatively anonymous; hidden. Unlike a bank account or a credit card which immediately identifies a person making a transaction... cryptocurrency transactions can be extremely difficult to track to a person.
Why am I bringing this up?
Well, I've been thinking about the evident contradiction of living in a world where people are feeling increasingly disconnected and isolated and are seeking connection and community, while at the same time they are also seeking to remain hidden and anonymous.
What gives?
The Fine Art of Not Being Seen
When I first got on the Internet, back in the mid-1990s, one of the primary reservations expressed by people was that it was "creepy" that people online could basically be anonymous.
At the beach in Denmark
"That person in your chat group could be a pedophile and you'd never know it!" the argument went.
My response was always along the lines of "And how do you know that the person you go to happy hour with isn't a pedophile?"
The underlying reality always made people a little uncomfortable.
As the years have rolled on by, we seem to have become more and more privacy obsessed and anonymous; worried that people online will somehow "find out who we are."
We join so-called "social" networks and then start whining and complaining the moment any of our information-- an essential part of "being social"-- is made available to others.
On some levels, we are more "out there" than we have ever been, and yet? We're also more hidden and avoidant than we have ever been.
Earlier Days Were More Personal
Back when I was a kid, we had fewer concerns about "privacy." Already as a teenager, I carried an "address book" which had the names, physical addresses and other contact information for dozens of people.
Buttercup
It was quite normal to send people birthday cards and thank you notes and other stuff-- through the mail. We generally knew quite a lot about each other, and each other's lives... even if "we" were basically people who had just met once at a vacation spot 100's of miles from home.
Nobody thought of that as "creepy."
"Personal" also applied in business and service... people greeted my father by name at hotels we'd stay at periodically, because they knew who he was.
Customer (Dis)service
When I had my art and gift gallery (1985-1999) we knew many of our customers and built relationships with them. It was not unusual for us to send someone a hand written thank you note after a larger purchase.
Fall leaves on a sunny day
That was called "customer service," back then.
Today, many would consider that "invasive" if not an outright "violation of privacy," almost like it were the physical world equivalent of spam.
In our gallery today-- 2017-- we have essentially no "contact" with our clients... sure, they show up in person and make purchases, but everything is electronic and hands-off, and 95% opt OUT of the option to receive our mailings. Doing the same thing, 30-odd years ago, over 50% opted IN.
We complain a lot about the lack of "customer service" but I have to tell you-- as a life long retailer and general "seller of things" that it's very difficult to offer personal service to someone who avoids divulging any information about themselves, ever!
Bridging the Paradox
So here we are-- today-- trying to heal the "wounds" we feel because we have grown completely disconnected from each other. Sure, we may have 1200 "friends" on Facebook or 1600 followers on Steemit... but who do we actually know?
Primroses with bee
I watch people walk around my town, absorbing the experience not so much with their actual eyes, as through the screens of their smartphones. I watch people sit in a group at the restaurant, and some are actually texting each other rather than talking... and then they come home and lament on social media that they "feel so isolated."
One step towards reconnecting would be simply to put away the electronics and engage with the people around you. Another would be to recognize that being "private" and "anonymous" is all but mutually exclusive with being "connected."
One of the things that offers me great hope about Steemit-- as a social venue-- is the large number of "meetups" that seem to be cropping up all over the world... often inspired by Steemfest. One can but hope that Steemfest might grow-- and like TED talks-- perhaps give rise to regional events... STEEMx, anyone?
What do YOU think? Does the world seem increasingly disconnected-- on a real, physical level? Do you think our disconnect is a result of our increasing reliance on technology? Does insisting on privacy and anonymity is contrary to connecting and feeling less isolated? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20170817 16:42 PDT
I never used any social media before Steemit (by choice, I was extremely private), but I soon took the leap and started posting. It was tough at first, less so now.
I don't think that I experience the same isolation that you write about. In fact, since starting to communicate online, I am much more gregarious than I used to be (I have always been a loner).
I do video conference calls with many of my on line acquaintances, and have visited some of them in person, often in other countries and at great distances from my home base.
To be honest, I don't experience it as much either... the description in my article seems to more fit people somewhat younger than us.
I was always somewhat of a loner-by-choice, even before the Internet... and the web (talking early days here; 1990s) felt more like an "opportunity" to me in the sense that I could cast a much wider web (no pun intended) to locate people I felt I could relate to. In a similar way to how Steemit made you more gregarious, so did my early experiences online... but I remain (by choice) extremely selective in terms of who I keep friendships with.
Our kids... now 26, 30 and 32... seem to struggle more. Although they are "well adjusted" compared to many in their generation, they often express a certain longing for deeper connections "outside the box." It's a strange dichotomy... they almost don't know how to not be plugged in, and yet they want what goes with being on a camping trip for three days with ZERO connectivity.
It's combination of steemit, the people and yourself who changed on the right moment. I can believe the form loner to acting on social media can change your live.. but it's the same as beer.. use it with care...;-)
I just had this very discussion with my teenagers. Smartphones in particular, seem to be largely responsible for this disconnect you're talking about. I was about eighteen when cell phones first became 'normal' for people to have on them, but at the time they were the very basic kind, you could make a call and if you stood in the exact right spot you could talk to someone on it.
But in the past decade things have changed tremendously. You mentioned that you've seen people sitting together and texting rather than talking, according to my kids this is the norm for people of their age group. It bugs them though, they think it's rude and even boring. I believe this is largely due to the fact that I've homeschooled them , so in many ways they grew up a lot like I did. We've spent a great deal of time camping or going to parks and hiking, but there has been a definite decline in these activities in general. I can't tell you how many times we've gone to a park in the middle of the day this summer and encountered just a few other people and even no one else at times.
I think social media can have the desired effect of creating social connections, particularly global connections like I've found here on steemit, but people should set some kind of a limit for themselves. Such as putting the phones away when they're in the company of others.
@dreemit, thanks for your thoughtful reply!
The other day, my wife and I were talking about how our grandkids will grow up in a world where "asking a question" means going to Google rather than to a person for an answer. That is, they will never have experienced a world in which the web wasn't at their fingertips. What's a "land line" telephone?
Our kids (26, 30, 32) are "cuspers;" they are almost native to the web and cell phones but still remember the old ways, vaguely. They struggle with feeling "connected." Our daughter, in particular, struggles with getting through dinner or playing family Monopoly without having to check her phone.
Don't get me wrong-- I love the "global connections" like Steemit... but I also feel quite at peace when I'm on vacation and "technology" means I check my email (I have web based businesses) once a day to make sure nothing is "on fire."
What you say makes perfect sense.
In the old days, people wrote things down on paper. Now, everything is stored electronically and your personal data is being used in ways many people cannot begin to imagine. I believe it is this 'tracking' of personal information that has people spooked nowadays. It seems that perfect strangers know more about you, your spending habits, etc. than you do, because they are analysing the data captured about you, while you do not bother to capture that data.
I don't think people are worried so much about the average citizen discovering things about them, but about what the corporate world is gathering; what Governments are collecting.
I read somewhere that if you admit to having smoked pot at some time in your past, you could have trouble crossing the border into the USA. These seemingly insignificant things from your past could come back to haunt you. I think that is the real reason for people to fear revealing too much about themselves on a platform that anyone can access.
There are so many layers to the onion it's not even funny... as we continue to journey through this world that seems increasingly obsessed with getting new ways to "micromanage" everything from our spending habits to our "rights" it always seems to come back to "follow the money."
And more and more companies and organizations want a slice, so they have to dissect us into ever thinner slices... part of what makes me a really "shitty consumer" is that I tend to pay cash for everything, have no debt and don't pretend I get to have anything I don't already have the money in my pocket for.
But the world isn't set up for people like me... and it's a lot of work to live like that. And it's also hard to live without a "normal" job... but worth it.
The government is welcome to track me, and see my crappy credit score and my non-existent spending AND income, and my utterly boring phone calls to our vet, and our kids.
LOL... I'm not laughing AT you but laughing WITH you because even though you are slightly younger than I am, your life as you describe it is even more old-fashioned than mine. I actually do use a credit card quite a lot, in fact I sometimes forget what cash even looks like. But having said that, I don't do a lot of shopping, so I really don't spend all that much either. I have a large garden and try to grow and eat quite a bit of my own food. I'm quite handy, so don't need to call the professionals very often. Mind you, as I age, that might have to start changing as my strength and stamina decrease (but I don't expect that to happen for a few years yet). I wonder if that is the old European culture in our backgrounds that make us this way? When I was just a youngster I had a very different opinion about finances than the older folk I was working with.
I love your analogy of the onion slices getting thinner and thinner.
Looks like I've been voting too much today. My vote is cut in half! LOL... Not that it makes a whole lot of difference though!
(Warning! this is a long response, and I'm not altogether sure it is answering your query...it's just a recent experience)
My phone was broken this summer, so I was without most connectivity for 10 days. Well, I had an ipad, but no phone, and the ipad had limited messaging. Luckily I had recently backed up my phone to my home computer, but I was on an extended vacation and not near my home computer. (I know I know, there's the cloud, but I just didn't have it backed up there)
So, it took a while to get a new phone...my husband took it back to NJ, then to the apple store, bought new phone (at a low low price! cuz the screen had gone haywire at no fault of mine), and then my hub loaded the back up onto the new phone and sent it up to vacationland.
ALL of this is to say, I didn't miss my phone and checking twitter and posting on steemit and sending messages and looking at instagram (I've already given up Facebook - too voyeuristic!). What I did miss was the actual telephone! With no land line, I was really at a disadvantage. Luckily I was in a small town so could ride a bike to my sister's home in one minute to make a plan for the day.
When I finally got the iphone back, I wasn't all that thrilled. I ddin't feel like I had really missed out on anything and had become wary of the dependence that it creates.
I personally don't feel disconnected. But certainly people must remember to meet up with friends and get out in your community and do things that are fun and interesting to you. and don't forget to Look Up! Stop looking down at the phone! Life is around you, not inside the iphone.
That's an interesting insight... and yes, life is AROUND you, not inside the phone.
I barely use a phone at all; my favorite time is when my wife and I go back to my native Denmark for three weeks and live in a low-tech cabin. Yes, there's wifi and I tend to keep blogging... because I like writing but otherwise my social media time gets cut back to pretty much zero. It will tell you something about me that I didn't actually get a smartphone till earlier this year.
Mind you, I should add that I am also "of a generation" (I'm 56) that grew up knowing how to entertain themselves without electronics. I don't feel a void when the electronics are offline because there is plenty of other stuff to do.
Thanks for the reply @gardenlady!
lol! I am also "of a generation"! I'm 58 ;-) (somneone thought I was in my forties the other day...woohoo!)
I had about a year and a half that I needed a cell phone and to be honest, it made me feel like I had a ball and chain on my ankle. I gave it to my son and to this day I still don't carry a cell phone. I have e-mail and a good old answering machine on my land line and that's good enough for me.
O yes, today we're so disconnected in every way. There is no communication in real life. Technology became a major part of our life... I miss letters, I loved them the most...
It's a strange contradictory world... we give the illusion of being connected, while we are more separated than ever. I wrote letters to people for many years after email... but eventually my letter writing friends lost interest and we stopped.
For some yes but for the grateful peopel who se the amazing technological achieemnt the internet and mobile smartphone computers are for humaniuty, internet has helped us connect bettr!
we can DECENTRALIZE our technology and money and society but we can connect with like minded peopel form companies
and we will have an army of blockchain angels going around the world solving poverty by investing into local businesses using bitcoin
Yes, there are definitely some positive aspects as well as the problems of disconnection. Just as long as we still remember how to connect with each other in physical space!
I agree that the world is becoming more disconnected on many levels, and I do believe technology, mainly social media and texting, has a lot to do with the disconnect. I would not say technology is bad, I use it everyday. However, since the internet allows us to access the world, and many are people we have never met or seen, we end up spending too much time isolating ourselves from the real world in order to maintain the perception of being connected. It is truly a contradiction...we stay connected but we are at the same time creating a disconnect.
I agree-- technology, in and of itself, isn't bad. But I have doubts about how we choose to use it... there's really an addictive element in there, the way many forms of social media are constructed. I watch my 26-year old daughter... pretty much always one hand on the phone... who liked/upvoted her last Facebook or Instagram post? Who said what?
And yes, it seems like a total contradiction.
That was a really good article. Lot of time went in. Going to Resteem!
Thank you-- appreciate the support.
I'm impressed!
Anytime!
no problem, anytime