[sosuke]

I think you're on the right track, this new stuff is very different than what I'm used too, and part of it is not just the interfaces, but how people are living differently. I don't get certain new social things, because I don't have the social structure that makes them work. So I don't think it is just age, but in how this connectivity has just been a part of life since the K-12 years. If I were still in that kind of social structure I think it would click faster, but the workplace doesn't count yet.

[grovulent]

Exactly... I would love to just experiment with google latitude. The idea would just to have an open social experience - such that if I'm at a cafe somewhere - and I have latitude enabled then people can just feel free to join me.

But I don't bother enabling it - because none of my friends want to (even though quite a few now have android phones). They'll say it's too creepy. And maybe it is.

But you can easily imagine a culture where it's not. Currently - people probably think it's creepy because they are very protective of their social networks - and don't like the idea of them blending. Largely this is because they don't want to be judged by the standards of one group when in the company of another. So they split their social realities.

A culture that found services like latitude not creepy is one where standards are more liberal or more homogenised - such that mixing social groups is less likely to cause negative consequences.

Ironically - if people mixed their worlds a little more then society would almost certainly become more homogenised and liberal. So it's a bit of a chicken egg problem that probably won't be solved until there is substantive generational change.