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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.
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.
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.
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.
There already are. There's the Portugese Ghetto (Orkut), the Korean ghetto (Starcraft forums), the American Ghetto (Myspace), etc.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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.
Isn't this pretty much the opposite of the "long-tail" theory?
I guess every stupid sociological theory deserves an equally stupid response.
How are the two even related? The Long Tail is about what people like to buy, TFA is about human interaction. Apples and TRS-80s.
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,
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.
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.