What was the question again?

I’m sitting in a cafe in Portland, reading a blog entry from a friend in Manchester about the impact of near-ubiquitous networks on human interaction and communication.

So, first off, definitely score one for the digital revolution. I couldn’t have done this when I was at uni, which is when I would have had plenty of time to hang out in cafes. But looking around the café for some anecdotal evidence in either direction, I see about half of the people here have laptops in front of them. One guys is playing internet poker. One girl is busily working on something important. Another seems to be reading a book with her PC unattended in front of here (maybe a report for college?). They aren’t talking to anyone else, but then, cafes don’t normally have strangers breaking into conversation anyway, so no real change there.

But what is more interesting, and relevant, are the two places in the café where two people share a table and have computers at the table. One is a pair of young men, each with a large laptop actually in their laps, pattering away at their keyboards. When I arrived, they were silent, each caught up in his own little pool of focus. But after a few minutes, and a very nice double cappuccino, I notice they pause and start to converse about whatever it is they are doing, one points to the screen of the other, mutters something about ‘firewall’ and it becomes clear that they are working on the same project, or at least related facets of the one project. They stop typing, the murmur in their own abstruse jargon, they completely ignore their cups as they work. These guys are clearly some variant of computer geek, so they are more than capable of setting up this conference of labour in some virtual space, messaging their comments, watching their colleagues efforts on a pair of flat screen monitors so large that they need welding goggles to use them, while physically situated at the farthest ends of the city, the country, the planet. But they sit in a coffee shop instead, almost on top of one another. I guess there’s something available there in the physical presence that they can’t get from the virtual realm.

At the other end of room (not really as far as that phrase might make it sound), sit two women, slightly more formally dressed, slightly older, but clearly just as well educated. Perhaps even more so; the words ‘doctorate’ and ‘research’ waft in my direction as they gather around the gentle illumination of a single tiny screen. It’s clear from the beginning that the screen serves as the facilitator (god, I hate that word, but it’s the only accurate phrase to use in this case) for the conversation, rather than as a possible medium for it. Its seems unlikely from watching these two that they would have considered having their meeting online, but perhaps there is a subtle (or not so subtle) bias on the part of the observer that leads to this conclusion. In any case, lack of computer literacy is no barrier, they could have emailed and settled their negotiation (as it seemed from my location), without ever needing to meet. But they didn’t.

Which pretty much settles the issues of digital interaction replacing the face to face, more traditional method. But doesn’t really address the broader question posed by my friend, does the broad availability of digital technologies lead to more shallow relationships with our friends and love-ones? I don’t know, I doubt anyone does, how can someone who grew up in the modern era make meaningful comparisons with the quality and depth of the bonds between people from another? I think you can only compare how well and how often you speak to your own friends within your own life. And by that measure, I would say that the technology has made for an improvement. For those close at hand, the interactions are much as they were, I prefer actual to virtual contact. For those further flung (and something I come to appreciate more in the last few years), I can now have a conversation with someone with the immediacy (or illusion thereof) that would be otherwise impossible. My blog, the frequency of updates notwithstanding, provides a point of contact, for which there is no proper analog analogue.

BTW Megan, I was thinking I dropping by on my way through.