Electronic Etiquette and Conscious Computing in the Digital Age
We as a society have not as of yet decided how to deal with the incursion of portable digital technologies into our everyday public life. I believe that we are only beginning to address the intrusion these devices create in public places and spaces, and we are just starting to develop new social norms on how and when we use them. The problem with all these portable technologies is that the freedom and opportunity they afford to us in unfettered access, creates the public statement that: “Where I am and what I am doing now is not where I actually am or want to be”. A rather odd feeling is communicated indirectly when we are in a public space, but connected elsewhere. I believe this unconsciously violates psycho-biological safety and survival mechanisms and produces a feeling of ill-at-ease when around people in the public electronic netherworld (e.g. we cannot fully be prepared and safe if we can’t really be clear what someone is dong in a public space). These technologies shift time and space and in so doing covey a rather mixed message to our real-time social world…..that […]