LIVIING IN PUBLIC

Review of the documentary film,"We Live in Public" by Ondi Timonervia Tweeted via oxfordfilmfreak

MY THOUGHTS ON LIVING IN PUBLIC –

I would love to see this film because I had begun to think about some of these issues over the past year when I became more and more tethered to the Internet via my iPhone.

Even though I've had the phone for over two years it has become more and more of an extension of me (and my hand) as developments in the technologies associated with it and the Internet have expanded and intertwined me.

After being connected to the web since 1998 through my own website and having a ravenous interest in researching various subjects on the Internet, and then discovering in 2005 that I could also blog, I realized I had become "connected" to others in a really unique way but I had also become quite disconnected from the stuff of my own daily life.

Myspace entered into the equation somewhere along the line and for awhile it was pretty exciting. It was yet another distraction- a system of connection and avoidance, a dichotomy.

Now, though, Twitter is the thing! It is a realitively immediate environment that offers chances to intertweet with someone you've never met. "Meeting" people in other cities and countries is cool and for me, following people along the MS coast is a way to keep up with the place I love. However, I'm not into collecting followers in large numbers as many people are. I'm picky about who I follow, thus I try to taylor the tweet topics I get and it works fairly well that way.

So... Twitter has topped my list for "somewhat socializing" (not a big socializer in reality) but mostly for getting info or news that I am interested in. Most recently, thanks to Twitter pal, Mark, in Galveston, I began following mashable which has proven the value of my Tweeters by opening up the flow of Social Media and Tech News into my little world. Though I had seen mashable's name here and there, I hadn't checked him out until Mark re-tweeted a couple of interesting blogs. After reading the blog posts, I just had to follow mashable.

The issue now is that apps for the iPhone and the ever-evolving syncing of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogging and Myspace which now offers a sync with Twitter) & other platforms are becoming more and more addictive. I am more intertwined within the Web- always interested in new things, always connected, always checking, always posting, even this bit I'm writting now is keeping me from doing my normal morning routine. But I enjoy it and I don't even have to leave the coziness of my bed, except for coffee.

So the thing is... I must remember that there are actual people in my real life that I need to commune with. And even though I do have a virtual, interactive pet kitty on Myspace I really have several hungry cats to feed and pet and I can't do that in "Web World."

When it's time to actually function within my own real world, the disconnecting from my so-called "Life-line to Web World" reminds me of how I have felt when I've walked out of a great movie or a concert... like walking out of a time warp into reality. And reality can slap you hard.

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posted via iPhone