Dear Broadcasting Brain reader:  you might find this post a bit scattered, self-indulgent, and a bit less cerebral than what you normally read here.  However, every now and then I need to change things up a bit in order to break out of ruts and reenergize.  I considered posting this to my older blog, but in the end, I’m just gonna let this one go here.  I’ve tagged and categorized this post under social media, and it does sort of fit.  Thanks for tolerating this indulgence.

Image by inacentaurdump

People talk about digital nomads, those souls who wander from place to place with their gear, looking for places to drop the anchor and reconnect to the electronic stream of life from wherever they are. Then there are the other folks who remain rooted to the same two or three locations during their waking hours, living out their binary dreams whilst rooted to their seats, not unlike mushrooms. Many of us live a digital life in parallel to our flesh and blood existence. Why is that?

The former loneliness of freaks and geeks

Small towns used to be a death sentence to the sensitive, the alternative, and the non-derivative person. This is because there was no way to escape rural rootedness unless you got wheels and drove away. The lover of things unusual, rare, and challenging used to find life a lonely and difficult thing, if only because there were not enough someone elses around to compare, share, and really get it. They amused themselves with the odd rare book, album, radio show, TV show (this is where late night really took hold, those times when the masses were absent and the quirky could occasionally emerge), or comic book, something that stirred the imagination and made new, strange feelings bubble up to the surface.

I remember those days. Often lonely and sad, suffused with occasional bouts of clarity, excitement, and glee.

Then things changed.

The Internet brought the world to us, every one

Although dial-up was slow, creaky, and maddening, it started to bring pieces big and small of our world to light, much like the map of a strategy game gradually reveals itself through exploration and movement. Documents, databases, newsgroups, online chats and so on – these were the guideposts, milestones, and landmarks of worlds that only existed between the ears of those willing to look and listen.

Suddenly, distance started to become irrelevant. Technology began to advance to the point where the fact that you had no transportation stopped mattering so much as long as you weren’t dependent upon flesh and blood contact. It became easier to ignore your physical surroundings when your mental neighborhood grew wider, more colorful, and downright fun.

Some people say that the automobile, train, ship, and airplane made the world a smaller place. But they don’t have anything on the Internet. The Internet is darn near instantaneous these days, thanks to bigger and better servers, communication pipes, and home computers.

Trapped in worlds made and used

Millions upon millions served – that is the current state of the Internet and its Siamese twin (or skin?) the Web. Millions of people use these systems daily to get our fixes of entertainment and information. Thousands upon thousands of us use the Web to communicate with other people, comment on ideas, and share data about ourselves and the small surrealistic spheres that we inhabit.

But many of us still inhabit the same small towns, the same villages, and still remain the square pegs trapped by round, suffocating holes. It’s getting easier for us to connect and share with the other weirdos like us and, increasingly, we continue to so. But has the world outside changed enough for us to emerge and feel some form of belonging and acceptance?

Do we even think of trying to integrate into our physical surroundings and interact with our neighbors, as our ancestors once did?

Or are we past the point of no return, addicted to our safe havens, afraid of the foxes that might jump out at us, as much as others flee to and from their homes to do their daily income-gathering?

Fortunately, there are plenty of apparently well-adjusted human beings who do as well offline as online and split their time as effortlessly and as seamlessly as possible. Most people chose one version of reality over another.

This digital life offers wonders different yet oddly reminiscent of the physical world. Is one better than the other? Should the introverts stay in one realm while the extroverts hang out and press flesh in the other?

And can we turn back now?

But wait, who’s gonna make the babies?

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Thoughts from Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer
• Maybe Every Thought Aggregates
• A simple theory on why social media is losing its mojo
• My social media processes
• The real time Web versus a reasonable time Web