Pack Animals

DiSo: Distributed Social.

Scott Kveton of Vidoop (who is a very interesting and exciting person) is driving this. It's really, I think, the inevitable intersection of technology and society. As far as I can tell, all of your websites, all of your online activity, will become inextricably entwined with your social network(s).

I believe that the explosion of social networking tools synchronizes with the desperate isolationism that modern technology has created. Thousands of people work from home. Even in office settings, many people are isolated, spending all day secluded with a computer. Off the clock, we spend hours a day commuting or running errands, alone in our cars. We check our own groceries out of the store, deal with finances online or via an ATM, at night we watch TV or play computer games, fundamentally solo events. How often do you see people sitting on their porch, chatting with neighbors passing by? How much of your daily life involves having face-to-face conversations, forming social connections and relations with other people? I think less now than ever in history.

But we are an intrinsically social species. We need to interact with other people. And so when technology tools develop that allow us to have social interactions through the virtual media, we flock to them. Facebook, BeBo, MySpace, Twitter, instant messaging... all ways to electronically recreate that sense of presence, of immediate feedback and response, of being with another person.

I don't know if it works, of course. That's a question social anthropologists can write theses about. I don't even know if it helps. But I'd guess it probably does. It might increase productivity. I think it WILL increase job/lifestyle/personal happiness. And after all, which would you rather, be productive or be happy? In fifty years when you look back at your life, which way will you wish you had gone?