Understandably, I'm supposed to discuss the main idea of this week's topic, but frankly, if I actually got started, there'd never really be a way for me to finish without tearing down this page in a fit of outright rage.
Well, here's hoping my laptop survives this semester.
We live in a technological world. Wherever you look, there is always someone with their nose in a laptop or a mobile phone. Someone's always checking their Facebook page or sending a Tweet. Though people still meet face-to-face (in the flesh, at least) all the time, the need for that has almost disappeared in the last 5 years.
With the advent of the *CAUTION-EDITORIAL* absolutely worthless and downright despicable *END EDITORIAL* social networking sites [Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.] and other communications programs, [VoIP, MSN, Skype, etc.], the reason for people separated by long distances to remain out of contact is gone. With the touch of a button or the click of a mouse, people tens of thousands of kilometers apart can send instant messages to one another and relax in the knowledge that they're connected to their friends in real-time.
We can make video calls to our friends and family to let them know how we're doing, or drop them an e-mail to the same effect. You can update your status on a Facebook page and then comment on your friends' status at the same time. The need to make physical contact with those people dissolved, almost quite literally, into the phantasmagoria that is cyberspace.
Personally, I prefer dealing with people when I can see, hear, smell and touch them. Granted, I don't generally go around sniffing or touching random people, but actually being able to do it is the point here. The coldness of a machine or the slightly hollow, metallic sound of a voice over the phone doesn't appeal to me. Yet I can tell that in the near future, that slightly hollow sound will become even more of a staple in our world, and I am not beyond envisioning a world where people no longer have to leave their own homes in order to go and 'meet' with friends.
--- Sandeep Sumithran
