Filtering Immediacy & Chat Anxiety
Half an hour after hitting the button, I receive my first “message”…and one that contained a request, a commitment, of which I needed to respond to immediately. This was not a good sign for my resistant self and the loner within, however, it was exciting and flattering for the ego. Someone cares that I’ve entered the network! And, a message….well, that’s much more effort than a comment on my Wall. Maybe the extreme isolation and loneliness I have felt over the past couple of weeks of writing and grading hell will be comforted by being accepted into this online community. Instantaneous virtual contact….no more of that measly email communication for me! Will Facebook messaging become my more ‘public’ method for virtual relationships, providing easy links to recent online observations I’ve made? Will email function as a more ‘private’ and, perhaps serious, form of contact?
The morning after…
At the beginning of another day of balancing work and research within multiple windows across my two digital screens, an unfamiliar sound alerted me to the fact of something I had missed in all of my Facebook preparation. The online chat filter. I could not avoid it, this would go against my Manifesto. Plus, it was my twelve year old niece who lives 5,000 km away…how could I leave that one unanswered. We had a nice chat and I did feel more ‘connected’. Fortunately it happened at a time where I wasn’t feeling stressed with deadlines, a time where I could actually enjoy the encounter. But right when we ended our chat, I made myself invisible in the Facebook chat. I was already aware of my need to control these technological options. I’m not against chatting, I just like to be able to mentally prepare.…the same way it took me five years to mentally prepare for FB 🙂
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