Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Internet
The technology that seems to pull people away from face to face interaction is the Internet. It is possible to stay connected to friends, family, and to even meet new people online. However, this interaction is not the same as physically seeing a person and having a conversation. Typing in a sense has taken over the need for verbal communication. In my previous post I talked about dance and its ability to bring groups of people together. Without using speech you can create communication utilizing your body and mind. This is a powerful thing and not something that most experience everyday. I challenge everyone to attempt to create communication in a way that is not normally experienced in our everyday practices.
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3 comments:
Hey Riki:
You know, I've always been curious to know what value a technology like the Internet might have for people whose passion or career or whatever is intimately associated with the physical body - like dancers, for example. Apart from simply getting information about dance, do new media have value as a component in the dancer's practice? Is there anyone out there who's trying to incorporate new media in different ways into their performance? Just curious....
Hey Ted: The boundaries that make up dance have in the past ten years been pushed. It has been gaining more attention... the new and now Canadian 'So you think you can dance' (started tonight by the way...if interested) has really helped bring media attention to dance. Also in the last five years there has been a handful of movies that have put dance on the map. Cirque De Soleil is another performance that has the medias attention. The only other thing I can think of is technology... as a dance teacher we often use ipods that can be hooked up to our stereo in the studio rather then burning (or buying) CDs. The actual practice of dance as an art form seems to be untouched by new media... or at least for now. Your question has me thinking though...
Hi Riki,
I was thinking about the impersonal communication you wrote about. I believe a lot of that to be true, especially when it comes to chat rooms and forums. It must be easier to abuse someone when they are not there to defend themselves and any opinion can be offered without fear of immediate retribution. Also, emails and posts tend to be brief and to the point and this often leaves out the gentle or courteous add on to a sentence. One has to admit that email is faster, easier and cheaper than a phone call so I suppose it can increase communications, especially with people some distance away, but, is the convenience of email increasing communication and decreasing the quality? Think about what we tend to say, “I’ll just fire off this email and be right with you…”
When I think of a face to face confrontations I’ve had with someone, say a rude shopkeeper, (or my mother,) these are often softened by the passage of time as I begin to forget or as the anger gets diffused by my memories, but a vitriolic text or post stays in the system allowing me to engage with it in its raw state anytime. Until I delete it. Come to think of it, with archival internet, one can enjoy that nasty feeling over and over, forever. Talk about carrying a grudge.
I also think that there is greater scope for miscommunication because we cannot see the facial expressions or hear the cadence of the voice. Often we need to fill the emotion in and if we are having a bad day a phrase, such as, “you need to go for a walk” written in an email can be interpreted as a bossy push rather than a soft suggestion. Our reaction can be “who does that person think he is telling me what I need?” rather than, “That’s really kind, this friend has my best interest at heart.” Not everyone has the skills of a neuro-linguistics programmer, but I think everyone has a talent for “reading” faces and gestures.
What about the opposite? What came to mind are ways in which strangers become friends so quickly over the internet. I was thinking of chat rooms, forums, dating sites, on-line support groups… there is a strange rapidity with which people form attachments because they are not in contact with each other in a personal face to face way and one’s imagination takes over and fills in the blanks. When one doesn’t have the person face to face cringing at the questions or the answers it’s easier to get really personal information much faster. Oh God, I just thought of on-line predators. People can seem really charming and ideal when all we can see are carefully chosen photos and clever wording and without the threat of personal rejection or criticism, one feels less vulnerable and more willing to take risks.
Veronica
Studies about the correlation between increasing internet use and decreasing social relationships
http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/Projects/personal-lives/contradictory.html
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