Well its hard to replace the human touch, that connection. Because my name is on all sort of dumb mailing lists, it gets on even more. Because a pile of them are local art/culture/music related I get invites, both e-vites, and postcards, and flyers and the like on a constant basis to do this or that. I tend not to. But when someone I know asks me in person to come see this band, or go to that gallery opening, I tend to go. I guess I'm just a girl who can't say no.
But people are a lot easier to deal with at a distance, no doubt about that. They can be difficult - at best. Too a degree, everyone is hung up in their own little world and bunches of worlds in collision tends to produce some friction as it were.
The computer, the net, is just a tool. Its a means to an end, and like a lot of good tools, there are a lot of potential ends, not all of them good. And, as Miss Ani DeFranco oh so poinently reminds us, Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. And I think that too the degree that you can use it to isolate depends on if you see it as primarily an outgoing device, or an incoming device. Specifically, does the net serve as an outreach tool for you to the world, or a screening tool - to do a really fine grind on the world before it gets to you?
Look, Ipods, walkmen and all the rest are way cool. God to have had something like that when I was young on family car trips - a fact my father agreed on. But, is it on all the time? Is there any sort of variety in it? I mean if you have 40gb of Emo music in it, and all you are ever doing is walking or sitting around listening to Emo music, the world can seem to be a pretty sad place. (because it is, and by focusing on that and only that you see it clearer). If you use it to enhance life, because sometimes a little music can add a lot to an experience, then that can become a different deal.
I think - that like a lot of things, or even most things - (as loath as I am to use the word 'most') its a question of balance, and almost anything, done to the exclusion of other necessary things, can become bad.
Hey, I can isolate with the best of them. I don't know any of my friends from grad school who got PhDs in History, or Poly Sci, or English who couldn't lock themselves up for a week with a pile of books and do little else. I like that. Its one of the things I like about the Net is that before I had to carry around a pile of newspapers and mags like all crazy people do, now I can go to the sites and read what I want from all over the world, and I do. Nice, neat, no paper.
But I learned the hard way in grad school, as most of us did, that if you isolate too long, you can do some real damage, so its best to surface once in a while and check out reality.
That's why I like, and have always sought out that theater deal, because it forces me to get out and be with people. And its a good thing. Granted, I'm with people who want to be where they are (and in many cases paid a buttload of money to do so, or, conversely, are being paid a buttload of money to be there) and are looking good in whatever the costume de jour is (always a bonus) and are sort-of trying to be on their best behavior, kinda. And it good talking with people, being with people, and working with people who you like to work with. Its good to do that in a collaborative setting too, because it helps reinforce the notion that reality is not all about you. Nothing in the world is better for your self image than being a part of something greater than yourself.
The net, and all that other electronic cocoon, that wrapping yourself into your own little world where no music, thought, or person that hasn't in some sense passed muster can get through, is a bad thing. It reinforces that 'its all about me' perspective that is the beginning of what Trent Reznor so correctly called, 'the downward spiral.'
But, you can use that stuff to reach out too. Really. At work sometimes we switch Ipods and hit shuffle and its a way, at least for me, to hear some stuff I wouldn't hear otherwise perhaps. I read the Free Republic because I am interested in what people like that are thinking and saying. Sometimes it scares me, but hey, we live in a scary world and its dangerous to forget that. But I read other things that convince me that other parts of the world are doing OK, getting better, or at least people are thinking on and working on them, and that's important to remember too.
