A hundred years ago buildings and rooms were keeping people in, and not just physically, but psychologically and emotionally as well. Today the significance of the physical realities in our world are lessening. Today we think different. The teenage version of my grandmother would be baffled by such alien terms as texting, blog, and website.
Information travels across the world now, through walls, and through pockets. You can be anywhere and have a meaningful experience, even alone in front of your computer. You can find out what your best friend did Friday night, or where Ashton Kutcher went for lunch on Tuesday. You can order dinner online and blog about it during breakfast telling your mom to do the same.
The environment within which all of us are allowed to play has changed. Every person is represented virtually on the internet. You’re identity transformed into something intangible yet very real. And social media supports the building blocks of that virtual existence. Who you are, what you like, how you spend your time, what you find funny, what you don’t support, what you love, what middle school you went to, where your parents grew up, where your grandma died, what you did on the fourth of July two years ago, and where you had your last birthday party… It’s all online now. (AND SO MUCH MORE) Probably. For me some of it’s in my profile on Facebook, a bulletin on MySpace, a re-tweet on Twitter, a blog on Live Journal, a Google search on my dad, or a website my thirteen year-old self made.
I’m a little bit there, aren’t I? In all those places?
It’s not exactly me, but it sort of is.
[I’ve been watching Caprica, a new science fiction series, in it a girl is able to replicate herself virtually and later that virtual self is transferred to the real world. It’s weird and oh so interesting.]
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