technoculture314-09

“Contemporary life is a swirling sea of social relations”. Kenneth Gergen is a theorist that looks at how new technologies have not only impacted the self but also how they have transformed relationships. He argues that we have now become saturated by relationships through technology such as the internet. While he does offer negative consequences of this, arguing that there is now the microwave relationship, a family that spends most of the time out of the home and the friendly lover, relationships formed out of convenience, his outlook is not an entirely pessimistic one. In a similar vain to Marshal McLuhan he asserts that these new communication technologies have collapsed the constraints of geography and time, allowing us to continue and sustain relationships from a distance. This is particularly evident when thinking about the internet in that we may email, chat, or use social networking sites to remain in contact with family and friends overseas. In fact I recently received an email with an attachment of a 3d scan of my (now born) niece and pictures of her have been posted on their blog. While it isn’t the same as seeing her in person it is still pretty amazing to think how easily I was kept in the loop from a distance. A point that I particularly liked of Gergen’s was his view that instead of there being a ‘single self’ that there are multiple selves that may be contradictory and that these may be navigated depending on the context. I regularly use Facebook and the range of relationships I have with people on my network is extremely diverse. I have family members (although I’ll admit I rejected my Dad’s ‘friend’ request), close friends and friends from my past, all gathered together in the one place. There are a few friends who I may regularly have trivial conversations with. However I can’t remember if ever I have used it to contact either of my older brothers or their wives, for me it serves the purpose of remaining up to date with their day to day lives from a distance. In this way it could be argued that we may even use the same place to navigate the intensity or frequency of contact. On the other hand, I am particularly intrigued by the way that status updates function. The phenomena of ‘hiding behind the screen’, appears to consolidate a range of relationships into an equal level of intensity. At times I wonder whether the people who openly declare details of their pregnancy or engagement to everyone on their contact list, would in a face to face situation share those details with the same people. I am not criticising what people do and don’t share, that is a personal choice, however it seems that in the context of social networking sites for example it may be easy to dismiss who exactly is on your network at any one time and that by not considering this different levels of relationships may be flattened out to a certain degree. While there are functions such as the choosing of ‘top friends’, a visual ranking of the intensity of relationships I am more interested in how people may share increasingly personal information to a broader range of contacts. What do others think about this?