I recently had a conversation with a colleague over lunch that included the topic of “what did you do during Christmas break?” She asked first, so I told of my experience. Then, I listened to her describe her trip to Zurich, and Munich, and good times with her sister and two adult children. Quite the holiday, it sounded like.
Of course, I had had nothing like that to report. I stayed at home. And worked on my computer conversion. Yep, that would be me: TechnoMonk. Hunched over a computer his entire vacation.
Really, my time off didn’t resemble anything like a European getaway, but it was a big deal for me. I now am back in the world of Macintosh. Finally.
I bought my first Macintosh (my first computer, actually), a Mac Plus, in early 1986. (It had ONE WHOLE MEGABYTE of RAM!) The agency where I was working at the time had purchased a Mac, and from the very first moment I touched it, I said “I have to have one of these!” Of course, I had no idea how I could make that happen. That was 25 years ago and, although I was employed full-time, I wasn’t exactly getting rich being a counselor. And while the Mac was an “insanely great” machine, it was also insanely expensive. However, I was not to be denied. About ten days after I first played with that magical machine, I owned one. I had to borrow the money, but it simply was not a thing I was going to live without.
I was a fanatic about owning a Macintosh. Being a “Mac person” became part of my identity. I found myself doing rather crazy things like joining the local Macintosh User Group (CMUG), and even, for a time, serving as a board member of that organization. I still had that Mac when I moved from Oregon to Indiana in 1990, ultimately replacing it with another Mac (the latest and greatest, the first of the Power Macs). I remember that, when I finally got rid of the Mac Plus, a friend remarked that I’d gone, computer-wise, from a clunky Volkswagen to a shiny-new Mercedes overnight.
So, again, in 1994, I had this whole other beautiful Macintosh machine to spend endless hours with. I wrote my dissertation on that second machine, and ultimately moved it back to Oregon with me in 1995.
However, the organization where I was employed, from 1995 to 2004, was almost entirely a PC environment. I had bargained a Mac for my office when I arrived in 1995, but by 1997, I was pretty fed up with being out of synch, computer-platform-wise, with everyone around me, and I capitulated. I asked for a PC at work, and bought a PC for home.
I told people, “I joined the rest of the world.”
Hence, I was out there in the Windows wilderness from 1997 to 2009. During the fall of 2009, I was planning to replace my 2004 Windows XP Dell with a Windows 7 Dell, when it just seemed good sense for me to head back to Mac. I was influenced by my friends, Facebook and otherwise, and, of course, by those delightful Mac commercials.
So, during the last few months, I researched the latest Mac models and finally ordered a 15” MacBook Pro, with practically all the bells and whistles that one can have…and I use it, on the desktop, with a new 24” Dell UltraSharp monitor (that I had purchased before deciding on the Mac). The whole process has been somewhat tedious, but fun at times too. It’s taken a few weeks to where the whole “conversion” is complete.
That’s how I spent my winter break: re-entering the world of Macintosh. And, oh baby, am I glad to be back!
Given the intensity of my life lately, especially the high-stakes medical testing I’ve had to endure (see the previous post, including its two updates), I thought I’d offer up some news today of a much lighter nature:
I have a new cell phone.
Big deal, eh?
Well, of course, it’s not just ANY cell phone I’m talkin’ about here. I discarded my old Motorola Razr for the latest, greatest, new-generation iPhone from Apple: the 3GS. It became available last Friday, June 19, and I was one of the first to own one (along with a reported one million others in the first three days of its release). I reserved it online and went to the local Apple store that morning to pick it up. When I arrived, I was ushered directly into the inner sanctum, despite the incredibly long line of sad souls who didn’t have the foresight to make arrangements in advance. (After I met my iPhone specialist, it only took two hours of my life, along with several hundred dollars, to make this all happen.)
Basically, here’s what I did: I bribed myself. For scheduling the prostate biopsy, having to actually go through with it, and needing to cancel a scheduled vacation to Santa Fe, I thought I earned, and deserved, a treat. So I chose the iPhone. (And, of course, the name of the device is a total misnomer since only one of the things it does is serve as a cell phone. I’m sure I could get it to serve me breakfast in bed, if only I could find the right “app.”)
So, during the last few days, I have been learning how to use this marvelous piece of technology...which is really a computer that I can clip to my belt. If you email me these days, there’s a good chance, I’ll even reply to you from my “phone.”
Right now, life is good. I am cancer free and I have an incredible new toy. Plus, in a couple of weeks, I'll be totally escaping reality and roaming around the Oregon Country Fair.
I found myself, during the last week, once more trying to explain the phenomenon of Twitter. For as many times as I've tried to describe what it means to have a Twitter account, to be engaged in that kind of online activity (and the corresponding concepts of "tweets," "followers," and "following"), I was met yet again with blank stares and a "what's the point?" kind of attitude.
In response to such overt skepticism, or even contempt, I tried to make the point that the entire experience is mostly beyond words: that you really have to try it out for awhile to "get it." My attempts to communicate what "digital intimacy" and "ambient awareness" are all about have been largely unsuccessful. I guess it's a little like trying to explain any relationship - or any new technology. If you haven't been there or tried it, this new something (whatever it is, the totally unfamiliar), and you have no other life experience to compare it to...well, then, the whole thing sounds rather bizarre.
In addition to the words I just listed above, there seem to be other, equally-unfamiliar terms dominating the lexicon in this area. One new one to me was the phrase "social media." This keeps coming up over and over, and there are a quite a number of individuals on Twitter who claim to be social media "experts" or "consultants." Huh?
So, I had to do some research. Wikipedia informs us that social media
are primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.
I guess what all this means is that the ubiquitous opportunities we have for interaction with other human beings via the internet, and the technologies associated with such contact are, in sum, lumped into the term "social media." It stands to reason that we'd now have developed an entire subset of individuals who specialize in facilitating such contact and are involved in the concomitant technologies.
Given all this, it would seem that I have been heavily involved in social media for years now [namely email, the Google photo-groups I belong to, instant messaging (including text-messaging via phone), this blog, Flickr, Facebook, Match.com, LinkedIn, and most recently, Twitter]. I just didn't know it.
And in terms of my biography, this all makes total sense. When it comes to new technologies and ways of communicating, I remember that, at first, I was pretty mystified, back in the 1980s, with the concept of the "personal computer." Even though I'd been programming on mainframes since the early 70s, I thought: a computer at home? Really?
But then I met the Apple IIe, and more specifically the program called "VisiCalc." From the moment I started playing around with magic of that spreadsheet software, I was pretty much hooked. Then, the true moment of personal-computer conversion came the first time I laid my hands on a Macintosh (sometime within the first year of its existence). As I fooled around with the graphics capabilities of the machine, the WYSIWYG interface, and the ease of use of the mouse, I was enthralled. My reaction was I have to have one of these. The Mac Plus was way beyond my financial means at the time, but I wasn't to be denied. Just one week later (after refinancing my car), I owned a Macintosh. All it took was the exposure and a little familiarity: and that little box with a tiny screen started to change my life. The Mac Plus was likely the real genesis of my metamorphosis into TechnoMonk.
However, in the present day, for years I had resisted the idea of the social networking sites. Weren't MySpace and Facebook primarily for angst-ridden teenagers and college kids struggling to find connection? What did these kinds of internet destinations have to do with me, anyway?
However, as I have described earlier, I finally, this last summer, tried Facebook. And, because of the "status update" feature there, I was led to Twitter. Through Twitter, I have now developed a sense of being part of an online community. I have generated an awareness of this collection of individuals, some of whom I "know" better than others - either because of the frequency of their posts or how they use their allotted 140 characters to communicate their lives. And, since I have developed a number of "followers," they must be getting some kind of a sense of me. As of today, I follow over 90 people and there are over 60 individuals who receive my regular, periodic updates...with a number of them already having commented on my entries, either publicly or privately. Apparently some of them, at least, are paying attention to me and my life. So far, the experience with Twitter has been much more interactive and satisfying that my three years of blogging have been.
I had envisioned this blog would attract a few followers, and it has. A very few. (Who are you, oh person in Oman?) However, only a small percentage of you who check-in here interact with me in any meaningful way (at least through the blog). My expectations, in that regard, have not been met. This website does allow me a place to publish these little essays I feel compelled to produce, though. And, for that reason, I anticipate I'll remain a blogger, even though more and more of my energy will go into the microblogging activity of Twitter.
Would you like to watch a presidential (or vice-presidential) debate while simultaneously reading what people all over the world are, in the moment, writing about that very debate?
(I’m talking about something entirely different than the graphs provided by CNN to instantaneously illustrate the reactions of various voting groups…)
Here’s the deal: on the Current cable television network last Friday they tried an entirely new approach to debate-viewing, called “Hack the Debate.” While Obama and McCain went at it, in almost real-time, on the bottom of the screen, the network displayed Twitter posts (discussed in my “Digital Intimacy” essay of September 15) from folks who were tweeting about the debate. It was a pretty interesting process. A tweet would appear onscreen from someone, somewhere, and then slowly dissolve away while a new one appeared.
I have to admit that, although I found it fascinating, it was also a tad confusing. It was like having subtitles during a movie containing the director’s comments on the significance of the scene. I had a bit of a challenge listening to what Obama and McCain were saying, and how they were saying it, and at the same time reading what everyone else was thinking about what was going on. It was a LOT to pay attention to.
Especially because I was writing comments as well. Yes, I had my laptop in front of me and I was composing my own observations. (As far as I can tell, though, nothing of mine was on the air.) AND, I was monitoring Twitter’s own streaming coverage, with comments very quickly whizzing by at http://election.twitter.com/.
If you want to try a whole new debate-watching experience, catch Biden and Palin (if she’s still the nominee, that is) this week on Current (Comcast channel 107 in Marin). Better yet, get a Twitter account and join in on the fun!
I signed up for a Facebook account in July. At the time, I had no idea that I was playing with fire…that I might be embarking upon some kind of transformative path in my life…that this was a journey that would provide me, in very short order, with great highs and ultimate lows.
But I was (doing all those things). And here’s a little bit of the story.
Although I have had for some years a very broad and active online presence (evidence: this blog, my old blog, a personal website, a LinkedIn page, a Match.com profile, and a Flickr photo-sharing site), I had, however naively, neglected an entire universe (millions and millions) of people out there active in social-networking sites (namely MySpace and Facebook). In fact, if I thought about such internet destinations at all, I asked myself: What’s the attraction? What’s the point?
But late last June I did another Google search that led me, yet again, to someone’s Facebook page…which, of course, was unavailable to me since I was, first: not a Facebook member, and second: not that person’s Facebook “friend.”
This was not the first time this had happened. I sighed. Dead end.
However, this time, for whatever reason, I thought about it some more and within a few days, I signed up for a Facebook account. That was the ridiculously easy part. Now what? I thought…am I really going to start a “page?” If I enter some information, what will this mean? Who will I share it with? Am I going to seek Facebook friends? Do I even know one single person here with whom to be friends? And: what, ultimately, does it mean to be a Facebook friend, anyway?
In essence, I was asking: Why am I here?
The eternal, existential, question.
Well, little did I know that I was entering, what Clive Thompson (in the September 7 New York Times Magazine) calls, the “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” In this thoroughly absorbing article, Thompson discusses the attraction of social networking and how the “omnipresent knowledge” of what others are doing is “intriguing and addictive.”
And, indeed, while he tries to explain all of this, Thompson and the individuals he interviews all seem to acknowledge that the phenomena of “ambient awareness” and “digital intimacy” are very difficult to communicate: that you have to actually participate to understand how this all works. His discussion starts out with a story about Facebook, but much of the article is devoted to a description of the so-called microblogging tool available at Twitter.com, which gives individuals the opportunity to broadcast to the world short updates about their lives (in answer to the question: “what are you doing”), in 140 characters or less. The bottom line, for many people (and certainly it’s turned out that way for me), is that the quality of ambient awareness of others created by Facebook and Twitter is a way for a person to “feel less alone.”
So, yes, I have come, slowly, during the last couple of months or so, to feel less alone in the world. This has been a very positive development in my life. And, perhaps, as I said in the first paragraph: transformative. For while my physical being continues to be on a healing path, my emotional self seems to be in a similar recovery…partly attributable, I believe, to more social connection.
The dominant relationship that has been enhanced is with one, dear-to-me person I used to work with in Portland. The emails, instant-messaging, and the “mobile” aspects of Facebook (when I’m away from my computer, I get a text message when she updates her page or sends me an email), have brought us much closer together. She visited me here in person last week.
Of course, nothing good goes unpunished. I had my first real Facebook dilemma last week as well.
Facebook had become the one place in the universe that seemed to be left for me to maintain my relationships with “C”’s (adult) kids. All three of them, two of their spouses, and one significant other, had all befriended me on Facebook. To the extent that any of them logged in and updated their page(s), I was able to keep up with their lives. C did not have a Facebook account.
Until last week, that is. Last Wednesday morning I opened up my page to discover, on my news feed, that “daughter-in-law and C” were now friends.
I was stunned. Aghast. Angry and upset. What is SHE doing here?, I asked. This is MY place!, I exclaimed. (To myself.)
Upon poking around, I found that I had access to C’s page and she to mine (because of the manner in which I had configured my privacy settings). This would not do! Neither would being in the same social online network with her. That very day, I wrote a painful (for me) note to all six kids, indicating that since C was now on Facebook, I was going to have to leave. I sent off the emails and then deleted them from my list of friends.
For me: great angst. Great. Angst.
But, really, the only way.
Facebook: it’s just like real life.
Only not.
(If you need help finding me on Facebook or Twitter, just ask…)
Soundtrack Suggestion
I feel the sorrow, Oh I feel dreams, Everything is clear in my heart, Everything is clear in our world, I feel the life, Oh I feel love.
An astute reader writes in to remind me to remind you that my latest postings to Twitter (my five most recent “tweets”) are always available here in the right-hand sidebar of this page…in the TechnoMonk’s Tweets section.
