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by fragmede 4708 days ago
HN and Reddit are prime examples of a social network - and one that could only exist due to our technology. They're also a prime example of technology degrading connection to another human. Consider if we were having this conversation in person, there'd be more "real social interaction", and I'd be forced to note you as an individual, probably recognize if I met you again, and you'd be more to me than an 11 character username that doesn't consider HN and Reddit social networks, for better or worse.

Due to the limited format here, I don't even know if I've 'met' you before, nor if we have 'friends' in common - to jog my memory of where we may have met before, whereas Facebook at least gives me mutual friends.

If you're ever in a room and everyone is checking Facebook on their cellphone, then Facebook has substituted for real social interaction.
2 comments
unimpressive 4708 days ago
>Consider if we were having this conversation in person, there'd be more "real social interaction", and I'd be forced to note you as an individual, probably recognize if I met you again, and you'd be more to me than an 11 character username that doesn't consider HN and Reddit social networks, for better or worse.

Let's keep things in perspective here. If it weren't for HN, you and the parent probably would have never met.

I don't see how you can degrade a connection that otherwise wouldn't exist.

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fragmede 4708 days ago
> If it weren't for HN, you and the parent probably would have never met.

Absolutely, and I admit as much in the first sentence!

Degrade was the wrong word to use, but my point is bad thing about technology is that I have no connection to grimtrigger, just a reaction to what was written. Of course, that's also the beautiful thing about technology - it's about the message, not the messenger.

So while the article's analogy was a poor opening, I think the article is spot on, in contrast to grimtrigger. Pre-internet people were communicated with the long lost art of letter writing, and while latency was high, depth of communication was often superior.

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katbyte 4708 days ago
>If you're ever in a room and everyone is checking Facebook on their cellphone

I don't know how many times i've seen people just constantly checking FB, twitter, etc in social situations instead of you know, actually socializing-_-

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