Hi Everybody,
Last week I had a Sunday at my keyboard and felt a sense of
companionship as new people kept appearing and introducing themselves
and then a dread awoke in me that I'd never get round to introducing
myself and, worse, that what usually happens would happen again - I'd
create a folder for Digital Life (which I did) and huge numbers of
messages would build up in it (which they did) and that I'd never
reconnect again.
To break the cycle I ventured into the folder just now and I've been
following the 'List Size' thread backwards - nothing like a short title
to make me curious - where I found Tina's analysis:
>I also think that forums are much more demanding of a "now" approach.
With email and >email lists, there is an idea that people have time to
deal with things, of having
>time to consider. When things get busy, it's OK to leave the email for
a while and go >back a day/week later and pick up the threads again
(excuse the pun). Forums feel
>more imemdiate and I think are more demanding in a "do it now" sense. I
think that
>makes them more intrusive, even if it is possible to go back through a
thread in a
>forum it doesn't always feel like it is.
It summed it my feeling with online communal spaces - be they email
lists or forums. Maybe 'dread' is too strong a word, but what I'm
feeling has that quality. I can't keep up. I can't participate because I
have other things to do and when they are done, the world's moved on and
another 30 ideas are nagging at me. Offline, I don't watch a
conversation happen when I am too busy to participate. Whereas today,
all day, the counter on the folder for Digital Life has been rising and
it's full of such interesting people on topics close to my heart. Arrgh!
Anyway, I don't know if I can stand the pressure, but I'm still here for
another Sunday. And so I'm offering a few words about me:
Part academic, part jack-of-all-trades, I am a visiting research fellow
in a computer science dept that specialises in interaction,
communication and media, in London, and write about the impact of
networks, upon people, upon old media forms. I am involved in a charity
that works between the UK and Ghana to support cultural exchange, using
digital media to help people tell their stories (www.fiankoma.org) - we
are now training teachers how to do it. I write UsabilityNews
(www.usabilitynews.com) which is about user-centred design. And I work
as a consultant and facilitator in a range of contexts: academic
networks, design companies, etc. I write drama occasionally and mobile
phones seem to be a recurring element in my plays. I used to be a drama
teacher, then a political journalist. Now, I don't know how to describe
myself.
Looking forward to occasional engagement and lots of frustration. By the
way, the Alice/Balcony stuff is fascinating. Back to work, back to
work... or why would I be here on a Sunday anyway?
Ann
|