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Is Tech Bringing Us Closer Together Instead of Allowing Us to Sprawl?
A columnist for Wired has an interesting look at how telecommunications are actually making it more interesting to reside in populated areas instead of allowing the complete disregard for distance. "Technology makes it more fun and more profitable to live and work close to the people who matter most to your life and work. Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, an expert on city economies, argues that communications technology and face-to-face interactions are complements like salt and pepper, rather than substitutes like butter and margarine. Paradoxically, your cell phone, email, and Facebook networks are making it more attractive to meet people in the flesh."
You can't get cheap high-speed internet, reliable cellular service, or even reliable grounded electricity out in many smaller rural areas. Tech doesn't facilitate sprawl; sprawl facilitates tech.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Firstly, I'm one of the most connected people I know and I hardly knew people still existed in the flesh.
Secondly, you have to go outside to meet people, and sunlight is not nerd-friendly.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
All girls look hot in their Profile Pictures
Only because when people choose a picture for Facebook or Myspace, they always pick one which drastically misrepresents how attractive they are...
Personally, I'm not sure I accept/understand the underlying premise - why would we want to 'sprawl' and have less interaction anyway? Living in a city for me and many people I know has nothing to do with compulsion, it's because it's fun, interesting, and a centre for culture, entertainment, and humans generally. Most people actually WANT more human interaction, not the Unabomber life. As such, I'm not sure how this (supposed) effect is "paradoxical".
Read Pynchon.
But what about personal/relationship distance? Communications via email, text etc does seem to be replacing quality relationship time with a higher quantity of low-quality interactions. At a personal level we're drifting further apart. People no longer see themselves as members of a tight-knit local community but more as members of a global community. This defitiely impacts negatively on local neighbourhoods.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It's something that's been changing for a while now. In a world where typing your name and writing your email address can legally constitute a signature, it would seem that we can remain disconnected easier. If anything, while it may make things like a handshake more rare, it makes it much more valuable. Imagine if you received a handwritten letter in the mail - it could be a death threat and you'd still be blown away by the care and thoughtfulness the author put into it.
Technology is ALL about bringing us closer. Most no one's invented or created anything that brings us further away from each other. How close we used to be to people at 5mi can now be replicated at 10mi, making the people 5mi away that much closer. Humans crave contact - nothing will ever replace hanging out and joking around with some friends - and things like email, Facebook, IM, and SMS make it easier. It's the old argument of making the world smaller.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
> "...networks are making it more attractive to meet people in the flesh."
/TSG/
Well, we're on Slashdot, so there's no possibility of us meeting the flesh of more attractive people.
We'll just have to settle for what he describes.
Isn't this pretty much the opposite of the "long-tail" theory?
I guess every stupid sociological theory deserves an equally stupid response.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Are they still relevant?
Can I filter out articles linking to them?
I live rurally. Without tech, I could not work internationally and live at home.
I have wireless broadband which is expensive, but I get 2Mbps which is fine so long as I don't try stream video etc. In other words it is fine for almost all work stuff.
I don't have cell reception, but if you're at home then landline typically works or I could VoIP.
I probably get more power outages than cityfolks, but I have UPSs to give me a clean shutdown.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If you'd like to put Ed Glaeser in some perspective, consider watching the Harvard economics department's PhD recruitment video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDJ_VHmaHgY
Or the Harvard grad student parody video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcN9ypgjApQ&NR=1
Or the Stanford econ department's parody here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWMg66CuJVM
Enjoy!
Did anyone see the bit on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday where they were talking about how Grandpa would walk 6 miles to the fishing hole, Pa would walk a mile to his friend's house, but Jr. can't get off his butt because of all the Interwebbing/gaming/TV that he has available. On the other hand, in the time it took Grandpa to walk to the fishing hole, Jr. could "connect with many friends online" and presumably have a meaningful conversation/relationship. Of course, this was not long after they were talking about how politicos will always have to do the face-to-face shtick because all other forms of communication aren't as effective.....
I expect there to be Internet-spawned neighborhoods, just like there used to be various ghettos (in a good way). There was the Italian ghetto (Little Italy), the Chinese ghetto (Chinatown), the Japanese ghetto (Japantown), the Koren ghetto (Koreatown), the Norwegian ghetto (Bay Ridge), a gay ghetto (the Castro), and there will be a Slashdot ghetto etc.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I commute 50+ miles each way to work, but sometimes I work from home. Depends on how I feel. The nice "tech" the company provides me with: a ThinkPad T61, a cellphone and a bridge line, also allow me to maintain contact with my team, some of which are in Jacksonville (FL), while others are in Charlotte, NC, San Francisco, CA, and others are in Hyderabad, India.
I talk with team members via phone, email and instant messaging constantly, and the majority of these people I've never met face-to-face.
Sounds to me like tech is making it easier for work groups to "sprawl" around the country, and the world.
No matter where you go... there you are.
E-Mail is just a faster form of snail-mail. I can understand wanting to meet a pen pal but I don't see how having one is more appealing than meeting someone at a public place.
Facebook.. good lord. Social networking sites are a joke. I have more interesting conversations on IRC on a regular basis than anyone ever has on facebook. And that has been around for ages, as has instant messanging. Thinking about how facebook makes it "more attractive to meet people in the flesh" makes my head explode. I think I actually hate that site for how much crap it seems to be spewing out.
Reminds me of chapter one of myspace the movie Warning!! video link
Dude she's got "the angles" - the myspace angles, a shot of her but, legs, lips but no full body shot... all the ugys girls have those shots.
I want to meet that.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
In the sense that almost every job which can be done remotely is done from India, there is great interest in jobs that involve face time. If those were most of the remaining jobs in recession 1.0, they'll be the only jobs left in recession 2.0.
This isn't a case of: "what does technology do to you?"
It's more like: "what do YOU do with IT?"
This isn't to say that new technologies can't oppress you in new ways when they are forced on you in (eg) employment relationships; just that the core of the problem there isn't technology - it's the employment relationship.
When we are given real control over whether and how to use technology, it's plenty liberating; but putting a pager on a serf just amplifies his subservient condition.
Dense areas focused on a common industry (Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley) are useful since the probability of encountering somebody useful by chance is high. In the same fashion meetings are local which is a lot better for budgets.
The only reason I can see that it is drawing people to cities is that no company wants to do rural cellphone coverage and you can't get broadband out there either.
:v)
Bring the OLPC to the West, says I.
Vik
"The most obvious example is online dating. With sites like BBW (Big Beautiful Women)"
I had no idea downloading pictures of fatties qualified as online dating.
I'm sure this was part of Al Gore's vision.
BofA
I see people lost in their iPods, cellphones, laptops, ignoring each other in public spaces. Its amusing how they ignore each other and sometimes trip over another.
I'll class San Francisco as partly livable; Pacific Heights being a powerful counterexample. The older parts of Portland are still OK, but the burbs are a disaster. Seattle was all right until the Microsoft Millionaires bought up so much of the in-town real estate for game nights. Most other Western cities are a joke.
The East is a lot more complicated, but what bright spots I've seen are specs in a sea of creeping unlivability. I haven't seen that much of Europe from ground level but what I have seen isn't encouraging.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The availability of wimax allowed us to move out to a rural area. That coupled with satellite TV made the decision easier. If it wasn't for these two we would never have made the move. We now live on 3 acres in the country in absolute silence and civility...unavailable in towns and cities.
Plus, it makes a lot more sense than that ridiculous "FairTax" that Huckabee proposes.
I actually used "tech" recently to find someone I had lost contact with about seven years ago. Instant messaging was a godsend in this regard, but it was no substitute for a telephone conversation. Well, actually, we use cell phones. Phones are more personal/less anonymous than instant messaging (not to mention that you get the benefit of things like tone of voice). However, cell phones had an arbitrary delay between when one person said something and when the other person received it, making for really long, awkward pauses.
As the article says, these kinds of things are complements rather than substitutes. You really don't get the "experience" of meeting with someone face to face with things like instant messaging and telephones, but they help out when distance is a factor.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Arizona is arguably the worst case, but there's basically nothing left of Phoenix or Tucson from before the auto took over. Prescott has Whiskey Row and Courthouse Square, but that's about it. As the towns get smaller, more remains.
Thus, sprawl.
Me, I'm outa here. New Mexico has some delightful small towns that still only have one or two stoplights and the original Territorial buildings are still in use.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
*more* attractive to meet in the flesh? You must be new around here...
stuff |
I was just saying to my partner that sionce I've moved from Sydney to Melbourne, despite all of the contact options (email, facespace, phone, irc, etc) I'm slowly dropping off the map as far as Sydney friends are concerned...there is simply NO replacement for face-to-face contact with a person you've physically met before; the friendship has a qualitative difference to an online/distance relationship, and it's very hard to go from the former to the latter successfully.
Smart Environments: Technology, Protocols and Applications
[Offtopic]
It Is Very Funny Style to Write Topic. Mayby Capitalized Letters Makes It Cooler (or Should I Say It Kooler?)!
[/Offtopic]
Someone needs to tell this to my WoW-addicted roommate, who never leaves his room.
Parts of the hobby are dying out because people no longer have any space to put up antennas. And if they try something indoors, they find it flooded with computer hash. I'll take a country farm any day.
No matter how much technology progresses, I don't think there will ever be a good substitute for face-to-face interaction. Having met most of my closest friends in person, it is quite dull and unfulfilling to then have to spend ten or eleven months away from them while I complete another year of high school in America (fortunately, this is my last year). I keep in touch with them constantly with the aid of IM, email, and VoIP (free long-distance calls to Ireland have saved me thousands of dollars!), but even as I talk to them every day, it's nothing compared to actually being able to spend time with them in person, which is part of the reason I'm moving to Dublin this summer.
Despite the fact that face-to-face interaction is so much better, without technology I would hardly keep in touch with these people, let alone on a day-to-day basis. I wouldn't be planning to move to a new country and I most likely wouldn't even be planning to move to a city. I would have forgotten about these people altogether long ago. So yes, I'd say technology has brought me much closer to my friends.
A programmer is a machine for turning pizza into code.
"I'm just glad that I stay at that lonely place for perhaps 2 to 3 weeks a year during the holidays."
Next up, a study finds out that geeks experience withdrawl symptoms when their toys are taken away.
Good points in the article on the value of face time. My young grandkids now live on the other side of the country, and as great as live video conferencing is to see their new toys, their art, and their faces, living nearby would be much better!
Same thing goes for telecommuting. I have been living in a fairly remote area for about 10 years (Sedona Arizona) and travel on business less than 3% of the time. This sounds good, and in some ways it is great, but work wise, it is a bummer to miss face time with the people who you work with. I need to (try to) work with smaller teams and have very modular tasks. The big wins are living in a beautiful place with a much lower cost of living. Working with very large teams when telecommuting tends to not work as well as 3 or 4 person projects.
There is another issue here: while the concept of "peak oil" really does not make sense, we are certainly past "peak oil production" (a retired friend used to be in the business, so I just have one good data point on this, but I also read about this subject).
The concept of people commuting long distances from the suburbs into cities is going to become unpalatable for all but the rich. Moderately large and medium size cities closely surrounded by food production is a good idea. Also, supporting people working remotely is a good idea, as long as working situations make that possible.
Ideally, decentralized habitation and work is a good thing. Buy locally grown organic food so that when fuel prices continue to increase, the infrastructure will be in place to feed people using less energy.
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I also hope that teleconferencing technology gets better faster. iSight on my and my family's Macs works fine, but even higher resolution coupled with using large screen hi-def TVs would be a nice improvement.
Ivan Illich, is that you?
I find it mentally stimulating to forum chat (e.g. pc world, yahoo answers, blog directories, mylot, commenting, etc) with others of similar interests within NZ and worldwide, as it's a good avenue to be authoritatively interactive. However, in doing so, I think I have lost a bit of verbal communication with real people, including some of my immediate family members and friends. Maybe advanced means of communication can create a partial isolation within your normal means of communication. Advancing (maybe), but unknowingly ignoring those that are closest...
The method you described, mindlessly pounding a rod into the earth, can produce a transient signal.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Can we expect more condiment analogies on /., instead of car analogies? Net neutrality in terms of mustard and ketchup, open WiFi in terms of spice shakers on the table of a restuarant? Bring them on!
The answer is "both". Technology gives us more options. Those that like living closer (evidently, most) can choose to do so. Those that like getting away (evidently, a minority) now also can and do choose to do so. There's always some pros and cons to either decision, but at least more options are available now.
One thing I think the Internet is doing is making everyone into jaded assholes. Seriously.
I started my computer networking journey early. Back in the early 80's with BBS's and such. I have gone through all sorts of phases and I now see "normal" people going through things I went through many years ago. I see people in real life reacting in bizarre ways like they would on the Internet and it's not good because people are becoming less civil to each other. I think online or not people could use a lesson in humility because I think we're all becoming too thick skinned and humans weren't meant for that. The worse part is, I don't think people understand what is happening so I don't see things ever getting better.
Although this author does bring up a good point about communication bringing everyone together (communicating online makes you want to meet someone else in person) I don't think that that's the main reason that location matters in today's world.
:)
Instead, I think the main reason people continue flock to and live in high population areas today is the same reason that they did way back when, and that is because there are real, tangible benefits that a specific location gives you that you cannot obtain from simply being online. For example, you can't enjoy the taste of a good Philly cheesestake sub by sitting at your computer and chatting with someone about it, and you probably can't experience the majesty of the Grand Canynon just by getting a e-mail with some pictures of it either (some people might be able to, but I've heard it's not the same as being there...) A less trivial example is that it's not possible to telecommute to every job there is. For example, there is no way (that I know of) that one can flip burgers at a popular burger joint or fix a server suffering from hardware failure without physically being there.
If, one day, we invent transporters to instantly teleport us from one place to another and the cost to go from one location to any other location drops down to near zero, then I think you would begin to see the effect that the author described begin to happen, where physical location will not really matter much anymore. Or, you might see a case where urban sprawl will start to appear next to the location of the teleporters the because it's easier to access a teleporter being right next to it than miles away from it, but that's a whole other story altogether.
Is it not common sense to think that people who are drawn to communication mediums are inherently social? Anyone who has communicated face to face knows that all other forms do little to capture the complexities of human interaction. I'm willing to bet that everyone out there who prefers social networking websites(/cell phones/online chatting/email, etc) over person to person communication is (at least) distantly admiring the latter.
But then again i'm an audio engineer, not a Master of Philosophy in Economics from Oxford.
"Mindless rod-pounding has produced a lot more than that."
Electrocution (one of my sister's boyfriends had a hilarious moment with an unmarked electric line). Ejaculation. And the ever awesome electrocution/ejaculation combo if you're down with that sort of thing.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Someone I knew went through the drive through at one of the local fast food joints. There was a sign on the window that said "Condiments Available On Request", so he asked her for some condiments.
She just kind of looked at him and said "We don't sell those here..."
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
In Atlanta there are two types of people, geographically speaking. Those who are ITP (inside the perimeter) and those who are OTP (outside the perimeter). Those who are inside tend to rely on public transit, rely on government infrastructure, and are used to having everything they want at their fingertips without having to go to far out of their way to get it. Those outside are independently mobile, tend to rely on themselves and their families, are used to making do with and appreciating what they have. Those inside are used to being packed together like sardines, living elbow to elbow, yet not even knowing who their neighbors are, and tend to be liberal. Those outside enjoy the space and the nature around them yet know their neighbors well and tend to have conservative family values. I am often asked why I live so far away and accept having to drive an hour to work every day, why don't I live closer to work? And I tell them because then I'd have to live next to you people. While I am an IT worker I don't live and die by IT. My cell phone is just a cell phone. I don't surf the web from my car. And when I get home at night my laptop stays in it's bag and I don't have people texting me and IM'ing me all evening. If I get on the internet it's to check my mail or perhaps buy a book or some music. I don't walk around like some Borg with a blinking blue light in my ear. If I can't get cell service I keep driving til I find a place where I can. What's the hurry? Tech does not make good neighbors. People online tend to be more arrogant and rude because they are anonymous. When you have to see someone face to face on daily basis you have to live with the consequences of your actions. There will always be people who are happy ITP and those who are happy OTP. Tech has nothing to do with it.
Nearly all my friends are hundreds of miles away and the people I've met via dating services aren't in the metro area that I'm in. I guess that's ok. I hate cities and would like to move out to the sticks when I'm able.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
they said that the greater use of comptuers would lead to less office paper usage. instead, everyone printed all sorts of crap for one reason or another, leading to an increase in paper usage
they also said in the 1930s that the television was a great step forward for mankind as a potent tool for education. instead we got "american gladiator"
and the internet was supposed to be this great philospher's lounge of idealistic thinking and positive intellectual discussion. instead we got fark.com
many other examples
the expectations for the influence of technology on human society are often and usually completely the opposite of reality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Naw, don't worry about AQK when his cats aren't around he has big fluffy sheep. he also believes in safe chainsaws so he can sleep with them.