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Design BlogCategories
Contributors
Social Life
- By: Ellen Lupton
- | Monday December 18, 2006
- | 4 Comment(s)
Many people complain that technology is isolating people from their fellow humans. I disagree. E-mail, cell phones, FedEx, Blackberries, and other systems are keeping people more in touch than ever. Indeed, many of us are expected to be “reachable” 24/7.
One of the themes of Design Life Now is how design brings people together, through technologies such as blogging (SpeakUp), public spaces such as libraries (OMA), software languages that are free and open source (Processing), furniture that encourages collaboration (Herman Miller), and publications that promote an inclusive, participatory, D.I.Y. design culture (ReadyMade and Make).
We’d like to hear how design and technology are affecting your social life. Compared to three years ago, do you have more more opportunities to interact with people (physically or virtually), or do you feel more isolated and cut off? Do you enjoy using public spaces to work or to meet people, or do you prefer to be at home or in another private space? What makes a public or private space amenable to collaboration and conversation?
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I like to think that I’m a walking, living case study for how technology, blogs in particular, can shift social behavior.
All my life I have been shy, timid and a little hesitant and skeptical about being placed in social situations. I mean, it’s not like I huddled in my room in the dark, but I would always have problems engaging in conversation or walking up to strangers and saying something and I have always, always been a man of few words.
Blogging served as padding between me and social contexts that I was not perfectly comfortable in. Blogging allowed me the time to say what I wanted to say by having a few extra seconds to choose the right words and the right delivery — something that in “live” situations doesn’t come as easily, specially with English as my second language. In three years I have morphed into a highly social (at least in my eyes) person, I speak at design events in front of hundreds of people, I can carry an interview over the phone and I’m more than happy to meet strangers who enjoy design and blogging. Nevertheless, I’m still shy and timid at heart.
Beyond my personal overcoming of social misgivings, blogging through Speak Up connected me to some amazing people that I would have never EVER had the chance to know. My best friends I met through Speak Up and we established a relationship by e-mail and blogging… Now we take trips together.
If you look at blogging as an extension of human behavior, there is no rhyme or reason as to why, as “technology”, it should disconnect and isolate you from fellow humans. Used correctly, blogging and all these other technologies make it easier to connect. And for some of us it simply makes it possible.
Armin Vit | Oct 29, 11:34 AM
Hi Ellen, long time!
Read the NYT article today (12/15) and thought I would look at the exhibition site to judge for myself.
Having moved upstate 3 years ago, after 41 years in NYC, I find that new technologies, like blogging, IMing and wikis or webspaces like Facebook and dotMac, ease the distance between town and country.
These “means” are also an indispensible way to connect with students who are digital natives—it’s their social glue. Their level of participation and articulation skyrockets when online technologies are employed by faculty (and other adults).
One has to speak their language, not the other way around.
grit | Oct 29, 11:34 AM
I might be one of the few who finds all of this blogging and interconnectivity a little depressing. While technology has certainly made my life easier in some ways (grocery shopping on-line, organizing kids’ birthday parties via e-mail, finding zip codes in an instant), the blogoshere seems completely out of reach to me. After a day filled designing books and an evening caring for a family, it seems almost adolescent to think about creating a page dedicated to myself and my interests. It reminds me a bit of decorating my own “focus on me” bulletin board in fifth grade. And then I had a captive audience of classmates who could react and comment. Who would my audience be in this case?
In addition, the research/preview function of the internet can be a bit alienating. For example, I enjoyed my on-line “sneak peak” at the Design Triennial, but now I’m wondering if a trip to NYC is really necessary. I’ve lost that sense of anticipation, adventure and discovery that comes from planning a day, making the effort to turn up, and being hell-bent on extracting as much as possible from a day at the museum. Why do that when it’s always right there on-line?
Maria Lindenfeldar | Oct 29, 11:35 AM
I appreciate your comments, Maria, and we hope that seeing our Web site won’t really keep you away from the show itself. Physical reality still has its undeniable draw! Regarding blogging, not all blogs are personal diaries. A blog can also be a way to document a group project, collect resources on a particular subject, test out material for a book you are writing, get feedback on a controversial idea, generate written discussion with students, and many other functions. We’re going to talk about these other ways to use blogging at a program at the museum on February 8, Blogfest. Although most blogs out there may indeed be narcissistic drivel, the software itself can be put to many good uses, and the beauty is that you don’t need to be an uber-geek to do it.
Ellen Lupton | Oct 29, 11:36 AM