Friday, November 03, 2006

Everyday experience and the connected world

Experience seldom scales up very well. We know that:

  1. Hand written greeting cards bring a joy that is missing in e-greetings and forwarded SMS's.
  2. Cooking for a family is different from managing a large kitchen.
  3. Experience of managing a corner store doesn't help when the business is a large departmental store.

It is the same when we tranfer our experience of personal interactions from real world to the virtual one.

People around you wouldn't ignore you so completely, as they may online. A polite smile is almost biologically programmed, but there is no equivalent on the net.

You now have the freedom to say what you want. But nobody has the slightest obligation to pay attention.

In some respects it is disconcerting, but in many others it is fun too!

Source: gapingvoid- cartoons drawn on the back of business cards

 

3 comments:

Lisa Peake said...

Nice post, Sunil! I agree that a lot of these rich communal activities don't scale well. I like the way you tied it back to modern technology, too. I recently saw this hilarious cartoon- it's a kid sitting at the dinner table with his parents and one parent says, "Well, yes, we could read your blog, but why don't you just TELL us about your day?" Too true!

Anonymous said...

Its disconcerting when others do it to you and fun when you do it to others!

Sunil Bajpai said...

Thanks, Lisa, for the kind words and for sharing about this cartoon. Super!

And thanks to you, anonymous, for pointing out that a wink and smile equivalent does indeed exist on the net.