Technology's Bitch

[lupestripe]

Judging by recent replies I have received, it would appear that talking about world issues and musing is more popular than talking about the trivialities of my life. I had stopped being philosophical for fear of offending people but I may now muse more often. And offend you :p

An interesting point was raised by Slinkat the other day about social networks. Although technology has undoubtedly enriched our lives due to its myriad of possibilities, we run the risk of being enslaved to it. My job uses the Internet, I go home and largely use the Internet, indeed I must spend around 3/4 of my waking life at a computer.

The rise of social networks has given us unfettered access to friends and the ability to make new ones from far reaching countries and cultures. The world is getting smaller and I like the uniting effect social networks provide.

In recent days on twitter particularly I have noticed people crave an almost instant response. Sometimes it takes me 24-48 hours to respond to tweets, comments and emails but I do make the effort to respond to each one. There is so much going on in my life that I can't just sit on these clients waiting for responses. However, by the time I do respond, the conversation has moved on, making me wonder whether I am using the technology correctly and whether my own methods are compatible.

Maybe this desire for almost instant gratification is partly to blame for people's general impatience in the world. Coupled with 24 hour rolling news and TV on demand, maybe technology is also not giving people time to relax due to the imposition of this new 'bang bang' culture.

Anyway, on a personal level, the point is it may take some time for me to respond to things due to my general busyness.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Comments

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

I personally tend to find that when it comes to replying with most stuff on LJ 7 days is a long enough cut off point.

Twitter about 4 hours, trying to reply to something older than that is well awkward at best, just to the constant stream of info.

[ekevoo.livejournal.com]

It depends on the subject, really. I generally use Twitter as a means to be reachable, so I've had no problem replying (or getting replied) to actually important stuff even if weeks later. When it's small talk, 4 hours is too long already, right? :)