The NYT Magazine has an interesting piece up about “ambient awareness“–the bits of data we acquire about our friends’ lives via the short updates on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Here’s the money quote:
Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life.
When I first started using Facebook, I didn’t bother updating my status too frequently. It seemed unlikely that anyone would care whether I had just returned from a walk or was craving Junior Mints. As my Facebook circle grew, I found myself regularly reading my friends’ status updates. This person made it home from a trip. That one is cooking butter nut squash. And I think I know why I find it appealing. We make a lot of fuss about life’s “big moments”–births, marriages, new jobs, etc. But the real substance of our lives is in those everyday moments when we’re cooking squash or going to work or watching the rain. Without the minutiae, life is a photo album. It comforts me to know that, as I go through my own daily routine and experience my own ups and downs, my friends and family are out there, doing the same thing.
Perhaps this explains a bit why we love your blog so much.