The Face of Conversation
A gray melodramatic day with mellow tones drowning out the divine quad shot mocha in front of me. Why haven’t I heard from my fellow friends in awhile I need to call and catch up. A phone call that was cut very short. I realized they knew everything that was going on and that has been updated in my life. It was a couple weeks later and I realized what had been going on.
My wife has started updating Facebook with every little detail possible. No longer were conversations needed or sought out. No longer being able to give variable expression to the stories that transpire everyday. All my emotion wanted to be expressed, but in vague sentences it was no longer asked for. I had no where for my sarcastic relevance to go, it could be read across screens to no end. The evolution of coffee breaks is a bit impersonal. No longer sitting down to shoot the breeze it’s not needed as much or not at all. The new cool iphone case I got they know from the internet. I can’t show it off the next time we all get together there is no personalization from friends who use to care about such trivial things.
In turn I do think there are benefits of locking down your soul to FaceBook I do have other reasons for never creating a personal account. I knew of the progressive policies of this behemoth. Fooey if I was going to give them ownership over everything I posted in there influx of a data system. Once it is in the database whether you like it or not they have it forever to do with as they see fit. Policies can change at anytime as we found out last year with the Instagram debacle.
I follow the premise that don’t put anything out on the web that you don’t want your mom or the local police to see. I am an owner of a web development company and get that this is a notion shut anyways, but the thought of them stating it in a legal contract well I just can’t.
Why play in this box instead of many other boxes that build tools for one specific thing and don’t try to confine me to one area. This reminds me of the first time I logged on to the internet I would get a CD from a company at least once a week to get internet over the telephone, but I had to use their words to search and there email, don’t use any other system was the preaching of the day. Call the open source movement rebellious, but I get it.
Though rebellious in nature this lacking to form is not a root of rebellion, but of conscience. It’s the same reason I don’t have a problem with many professional marketing companies. Everyone can have tools and elevate the landscape, but one cannot be to all. I enjoy the notes that are dug deep from the confluence of our minds. I have gone out to build a team of companies that can be that all and keep feeling voids where needed. Technologies of the season dictates the essential skills that can be extracted and it is never ending evolution of daily execution.
Don’t trap me in a system and ask that I spend no time elsewhere. Let me grow in chosen systems and combine them my own way in my own web. I want to have a methodology that adheres to the way I see thing producing the confluence I want. Why was google able to beat out Goliath’s in a marketplace saturated by search engines that no longer exist. They focused on the one simple thing, that this is search results. Give the best results possible to the one searching. I don’t want to sign up for email, see the latest hollywood gossip and have that search box change everytime I login into the site.
On a whole different note requiring its own research we have the affect all of this is having on us socially. The face of conversation is becoming a bland numbness. Emotion is being deflated and we are not enriching ourselves with each other. We are only seeing starting affects of a pure digital lifestyle, but the last thing someone thought they would hear out of me is my envy for the life of a farmer. I remember the highlight of my Grandpa’s day would be morning coffee at the local diner. Whoever in town happened to show up it was a conversation waiting to happen. He could talk the whole hour to whoever and it brought energy to the day past the caffeine. It’s no wonder the two most popular sitcom’s were surrounded by everyone’s daily event and a cup of coffee.
Just used this post as a place to regress my feeling of the medium I actually love. I guess there is give and take in everything. It’s finding out how to take some of the great things that have been stolen back and incorporate all of this together. I have hope.
A better web,
Brandon Roach