A blog community is NOT the same as Woodstock

I still own a felt tip pen.  (I own many, in fact.)  I have my entire high school album collection and even once saw the Dead live in concert.  I used to watch The Ed Sullivan show religiously (and loved the spinning plate guy).

But I also blog, attend events like PodCamp and PostieCon and keep my entire life's activities on a PDA.  I am now a closet reality TV junkie.

I don't miss much about "the old days," however I worry about the depersonalization of communication.  All five senses are meant to be used.  Mouths, hands, ears and feet may all soon become vestigial body parts -- or simply evolve in strange ways to accomodate electronic devices.

Some cases in point:

• I attended a blogging conference recently where my table-mates didn't talk to each other at first because they were busy blogging (ironically, about the event we were all attending together).
• Over the past four years, clients and freelancers I worked with chose to deliver bad news via text messages or cell phone voice mail.
• My team and I will often send each other e-mails rather than get up from our chairs and walk 15 feet to talk to each other.
• Just notice how many people sit in public places together wearing ear buds.

This space is not intended to be the contemporary equivalent of "In my day, we used to trudge through 4 feet of snow to a one-room schoolhouse to write with coal."  It's simply designed to start a lively dialog about how we can start to integrate some timeless principles and lessons into the "new media" world. 

What (or who) do YOU miss most? 

What were you happy to bury along with your Nehru jacket?

Blog on! (and Peace!) 

Comments

[Mark R. LePage, AIA (Entrepreneur Architect)]

I too write e-mails to my staff, sitting within 15 feet of me in the same room.

Enjoy the new blog...

[Jim Turner]

I just had a Dave Clark Five flashback and The Monkees, etc. Thanks for that!!

[Wiki Girl Amanda]

I wasn't around for the Grateful Dead or Ed Sullivan but here are a couple things I miss: (I'm sure you will be able to guess what decade I came from)
-puff paint
-when Madonna was cool
-Fraggle Rock
-the Boxcar Children
-the Oregon Trail
-MASH--the fortune telling game, not the show
-slap bracelets before they got banned =) yeah, I hit people!
-the mystery of Pogs (I still don't understand the point)
-Goonies, Pee-Wee and Gremlins!

I'm sure there's many more but my childhood was fantastic. I just bought the DVD of The Adventures of Milo and Otis yesterday--still a classic.

[Nancy A. Shenker]

Great article in today's New York Times about blogging "rules" and civility. There's a fine line between freedom of speech and online abuse.

[Barry Sarner]

We need you, Nancy Shenker,to keep reminding the world about the concept of Human connections. The concept that got us to where we are today. Face to face, belly to belly,eye to eye is the only way you can really understand and feel the "REALITY" of being human and of being alive.