The World of the internet is amazing

So the other week I had a post about falling in love with my Treo 650. My friend Todd made a comment about Thad Starner and ubiquitous wearable computers. Fayza (whom I've never met in person) then asked Todd (whom she's never met) "Who is Thad Starner?"

I replied to her comment that Thad Starner was a 'wearable computer geek,' a fact I had to look up via Google. Two weeks later, Thad Starner (whom I've never met) somehow ends up on my blog, and corrects me to say that he is a 'wearable computer nerd.' I'm guessing that he used Google to search his name and ended up here.

So "Hi Thad, hi Todd, and hi Fayza."


The other day I was waiting in my apartment lobby to catch the elevator. There were a number of people standing around and none of us said "Hi" to each other, nobody made small talk. I had a feeling that if it was 100 years ago, we would have all made small talk (granted that 100 years ago there wouldn't be 500 people living in one building.) But in busy nyc where you come across 10,000+ people a day, you don't have time to chat it up with everybody. I don't know anybody in my building, I barely know my neighbors (they are mostly old people for some odd reason.) When my neighbors are young, hip, party down and get drunk kids, then I know them (that's a shout out to 302 Summit Ave.)

I started thinking about how the 'real world.' is getting less personal. When we walk down the street or ride the subway, we wear our headphones, talk on our cell phones, and don't give a crap of being friendly to the person next to us. However, in the 'virtual world.' of the internet, we are starting to make leaps and bounds in connecting people socially. There is a shift from being friendly and socialable in the 'real world' onto the internet. I'm not saying it's making a full move from one medium to another, but there is some shift. There will always be times when you are friendly to the person sitting next to you on the subway or plane, but it probably doesn't occur as frequently as it used to because we meet so many more 'strangers' these days, too many 'strangers' to have the time for chatting.

Also note, that I don't think these social connections exists solely on the internet. The internet is just a tool that allows people to make initial connections. I attend meetup.com groups which are social connection I made via the internet, but all of our social interactions happen face-to-face.

The internet allows me to meet people with the same interest as me. So although I could just start rambling to my neighbor about The Killers, most likely s/he's not going to be interested in the conversation.

Any thoughts?

P.S. - This is an after thought after publishing. At the top, I talk of Todd, a friend that I have been re-acquainted with via Friendster after falling out of touch for 11+ years. I'm not exaggerating, that's half my life. He moved to Atlanta in 8th grade, I made a trip down there once in 9th grade, he visited Port Washington (hometown) sometime after that, and then we just fell out of touch. A few months ago he drops me a line via Friendster after searching connections though Port Washington's High School. We talk a few times online and over the phone, then I goto visit him in his kick ass loft in Atlanta a month ago. Turns out over 11 years (with me not owning a computer back then,) we sorta ended up being interested in the same stuff.

crazy!