The Stretching of Generation Net

My generation is full of media whores. I don’t mean the Paris Hiltons or Lindsay Lohans of the world either. I am taking about everyone, including myself. While attending middle and high school in suburbia, the internet was my means of connecting with people on a consistent basis. Screw five hour phone conversations with one person, I could chat up ten friends on AIM until two in the morning. Hell, I would chat up friends on AIM while simultaneously chatting with friends through Steam as I engaged in furious games of Counter Strike.

As technology progressed, so did my communication addiction. Xanga and MySpace consumed my free time and probably much of my working time in my last two high school years. Once college hit, Facebook was the new tool of procrastination. Now I operate on all these platforms in addition to Twitter, Linked-In, Google chat and the EnV2, my super text-friendly phone.

Through my interweb and cellular connections I have bits and pieces of my identity spread out all over the information superhighway. Instant communication is an incredible tool, and I cherish it for all its worth.

However, consider this interesting predicament. A couple weeks ago my friends and I were out venturing on a late night hike, a luxury for the currently unemployed class of 2009. We were having an engaging conversation, and I wanted to share some of our insights with others. Rather than wait for the morning, I began texting my brother on the other side of town, Mr. Sles from POWSO while he was in San Francisco and even my friend who was only a couple of blocks away.

I had to divide my attention between texting and conversing with the beings my friends physically present. Of course, I missed out on some of what was being said. In trying to extend a line of communication to people in distant locations I sacrificed my ability to live in the moment.

Perhaps many of you have had this realization and I am just the last horse crossing that cliché finish-line. Our desire to share and maintain communication with others at all times handicaps our ability to communicate with those directly around us.

I have a friend who when we use to go out to parties or social gatherings would spend all of his time putzing around on his iPhone reading Cracked articles and checking his Facebook. He would complain that he hated parties and just felt awkward. Balloo aptly told him that he might enjoy social gatherings more if he interacted with living people more often. We would even confiscate his iPhone when going out in order to socialize him. After one night, he got separated from our friend group and was without his phone since Balloo had confiscated it. When I finally ran into him the next morning he told me had one of the better nights of his college career.

Technology is changing the way we define and look at the words social and anti-social. When I first developed my Counter Strike addiction and spent large parts of my time on the G4 message boards my real life acquaintances would raise their eyebrows when I talked about the friendships and relationships I had accumulated online. Online dating services were mocked and generally frowned upon. Now they are becoming increasingly acceptable.

My struggle lies in the attempt to define our society’s changing form of communication. Are we evolving or devolving? When do we cross that threshold and become media addicts rather than just media users? The answers to these questions will be decided in the future.

I once heard someone say that when we look back at our current time period we will either look at Google as one of the world’s greatest resources or as the anti-Christ. While I sincerely hope for the former, the latter may be more fitting if we forget the importance of traditional human contact.