Heart and Mind

Cyber-Geek? No Way.

Have you ever sent an email to someone and spoke to them a week later only to find out they never received it because, in their words, "I, like, never check my email." Email is almost a novelty with little use to these people, I guess. They check it once a week or less frequently, perhaps.

Me? I'm definitely not one of those people. I'm quite the opposite.

For starters, I have four different email accounts, each used for different purposes, that I check (or are automatically checked) constantly. (If you count email accounts that I check only occasionally, I have even more than four.) In addition to that, I have two different instant messenging accounts. I also have this blog. And I also read other blogs and leave comments on them. And I have been involved in online communities & newsgroups/mailing lists for over 10 years now.

When you add it all up, it's an easy insult to say it seems kind of geeky. We all know the stereotypes of the computer nerd. He sits around at his computer all day at the expense of actually getting outside and getting fresh air. Or at the expense of learning how to have real interpersonal relationships with people in the flesh.

I suppose that could be the case with some people, but I think for most of us who are believers in the online medium, it isn't. It may be digital, but it's all about communication. And it's not about communication that replaces face-to-face communication. It's about more communication. It's about communication that wouldn't be there at all without the online medium.

I work over 40 hours a week at a computer. The computer is not my life and my job ultimately is not about a computer, but the computer is the tool that I use to get my job done. It's what the hammer is to the carpenter. But unlike the carpenter, my tool can do so much more that isn't related to working. And while I'm sitting here for hours on end at one of my several computers, the online connection becomes my lifeline to the world. It's how I get to communicate with other people, especially those who are also working the bulk of their day in a windowless office with a computer.

The online experience is, essentially, the 21st century version of the water cooler. There's a piece of Americana lore that says working people hover around the water cooler when it's time for a break and they need to clear their heads. My water cooler is open to my friends in other offices, and also to anyone else across the world who wants to get involved.

I started thinking up this post two days ago, a day that suffered from the typical "Friday before a three day weekend" scenario. By the last few hours of the work day, things started seeming like a ghost town in my office and all my online activity got quiet, too. No one was on instant messenger besides the two other people in the room with me, emails with friendly banter had stopped, the blogs were dead.... In short, it seemed apparent to me that everyone else had left work early. I began to feel like the only people left in the world were the two other people with me at the office. It was almost a little depressing. Even if I'm not chatting with anyone, seeing other people on that messenger list lets me know that they, too, are busy working. It's nice to know.

Last night, after getting home from being out, I logged on and noticed a friend (whom I expected to keep later social hours than I) logged onto her computer. I asked her what she was doing and she confessed that she had had a slow night, socially. Instead of just watching television, she was online "looking for people." And she found them. In me and in two others that she was simultaneously chatting with. I told her she should come visit tomorrow. So today I'll probably see her—real face-to-face stuff. How about that?

This medium is about people and people sharing their lives. And you can share whatever you want to share, so, to put it bluntly, it's really only as boring as you are. I'll take a great online conversation with an interesting person over a face-to-face one with a boring person anyday. And it works the other way around, too. It's all about what you can bring to the table, not how you bring it there.

And so far I have only talked about people that I know personally whom I also correspond with online. I also have met a lot of people online. Some of them I continue to know in that "online capacity," but they are well more than names on a screen. I know about their personalities, I know how they will likely react to a given situation, I know about their families. Beyond that, many people I know through online correspondence are people that I have met in person, or have seen several times, or have spoken to on the phone. And like any other community of people, we all know the other people in our circles. It's a world community filtered into smaller communities. Just like real life.

Maybe the cyber world gets knocked because it seems to be a young person's game, a teenager/college-student type of thing. The image, perhaps, is of a dorky teenager on "MySpace" who IMs with friends all day. That makes sense, because they are the people that usually have the time to do it. Well, I have very little free time, but I do work at a computer all day long. If I'm waiting 5 minutes between phone calls or to hear back from a client, I'm on top of all this stuff. And I make no apologies for it. It's a great time in the history of the world to be working at a desk.

If anything, I joke around about it. I'm constantly telling people I'm a loser because I have my own blog and read other people's. But I do so tongue-in-cheek. I bust my own chops because I know what the stereotype is and I can laugh at myself knowing that I probably look like one of those guys. But I really know I've got a huge life in the "real world." I'm big into that game, too. This is just part of it, and part of it that I make the time for when I can.

posted by Steve @ 8:09 AM