Internet and Human Connection

If I was attending this conference 20 years ago, I wouldn't be able to do work from my hotel room. I doubt that I would have felt much like socializing with people at the conference either. The things I do are very removed from the day to day needs of people in my field. I'm grasping for insights at every event, and gathering some. I have no idea how I can interact with anyone, and I didn't come to the conference with anyone. One attempt was met with awkwardness, and I'm over taking the risk of greeting random strangers just to offend them.

So if this was 20 years ago, I probably would have felt the same way and retreated to my hotel room. I would not have been able to get some work done from there, which is one benefit. But I also would not have been able to log onto facebook and see updates and comments from people that I like.

I think of things like this when people lament that our means of connecting are making us more disconnected. Actually, I usually think of laying a giant F bomb on them for saying that. I refuse to be nostalgic for an inferior time.