Dear reader,
in a time today where half of the world seems to be
on facebook, I see my freedom exactly in not being on facebook. Although I do have a mobile phone (cell phone, for
some of my readers) and even one with a land line number, it's the
only way to contact me all the time, if you wanted. The only four
exceptions are: 1) when I'm taking a shower, 2) I'm out to do some
quick shopping or 3) I don't hear my phone, likely because I'm out
and listening to too loud music on my ipod or 4) I can't reach it in
time.
It's a bit strange that my mobile phone is the best
way to contact me instantly of all possible ways. Because I generally
don't like phoning that much and I prefer writing or talking to
people directly.
Most people, with whom I have communicated or still
am communicating using chat programs, have the decency to write me
when they're leaving when they're on invisible status. Many people I
know, who use that status, have their good reasons for it. I only
feel sorry that they're always the one writing to me and I don't have
the possibility to be the one to contact them first. I don't know if
they're there or not. For all I know, judging by their status, they
could just as well be gone or have turned off their computer all
together, just as their status suggests they're “off”. Luckily
that only happened to me on few occasions.
For me what tops off the invisible status is being
online with (hooray!) smartphones all the time now. That way some
people are (almost) constantly online with chat programs, but with
away status. Considering their status to be true, I don't write to
the very most people in that case. Either they're really not on their
phone or computer or don't want to be disturbed. So I don't write to
them. Which is fine with me. Honestly. It only makes me wonder, why
they're online still.
In the first episode of the 11th Doctor in “Doctor Who” (The Eleventh Hour), aliens darken the sun for the humans on earth and prepare to incinerate the earth. The Doctor stands outside and watches the people, who have nothing better to do than taking pictures of the sun or filming it on their cameraphones. The comment of the Doctor to all of that personally makes me very sad, “Oh and here they come. The human race. The end comes, as it was always going to... down a video phone.”
Call me egoistic, arrogant, old fashioned or whatever negative description you can think of. But I myself do not want to be part of a society, in which I have to be on call online always and all the time and even though I write this blog here online, I do not have to record every single tiny bit of my life online. In the episode “The Bells of Saint John” (season 7, episode 7) in a quiet moment, the Doctor describes the situation so far, the way he understands it as follows, “This whole world swimming in Wi-Fi. We're living in a Wi-Fi soup! Suppose something got inside it. Suppose there was something living in the Wi-Fi, harvesting human minds, extracting them. Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the World Wide Web, stuck for ever, crying out for help.” Clara's comment on that, “Isn't that basically Twitter?”
Everybody vanish in the internet. Everyone, register yourself on facebook and twitter. I won't know what's going on for you then, because I'm not registered on either of that. But what the heck. If communication today gets reduced to facebook and twitter, then this here is my good-bye to you. Maybe we'll see each other again when the world stops existing or maybe already when the third world war broke out. I have a hunch neither of that might happen online exclusively.
Until next blog,
sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment