Ha ha modern technology…
Last night I attended a dinner with my fellow Montreal-based SweetSpot writers as well as our editor Vanessa… I’ve been emailing with Vanessa for at least a year and we’d neither met nor spoken on the phone… and we live in the same city. Ha ha modern technology.
I also met a fellow writer who I’ve “known” (ha ha via modern technology) for over five years. How crazy is that? The other writers I recognized more by their Twitter names than their actual birth-given names!
I’ve been completely obsessed with documentaries since we got our free trial with Netflix, and it got me to thinking – if I want to get my “name” out there I should make some sort of documentary myself, conduct a random (but nonetheless interesting) social experiment and get people talking. So I thought – what if I rented a hotel/apartment for one month (maybe longer) and attempted to maintain my relationships with people ONLY through the internet? I mean, communicate with family, friends and my husband via chat, email and Skype ONLY. Order food. Have no human contact. Would my relationships change? Would my marriage suffer (by the way, Mike thought this was a GREAT idea… hmph!)? Would I survive being so isolated or would I still feel e-connected to people? We already have so many “friendships” through social networking like Twitter and Facebook, so could our entire social existence survive via the web?
How often do you say you “know” someone or are “friends” with someone simply because they’re on your friends or followers list and yet you’ve never met face-to-face?? How many relationships do you maintain through emailing and chat, not actual get-togethers?
So, if there is anyone out there willing to give me an isolated place to live and provide me with food, I’ll start working on my documentary. Haha modern technology… you make me laugh and never cease to amaze me!
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marlene Said:
on January 12, 2011 at 9:14 pm
I think it’s a brilliant idea that has selling value. You can be sponsored by all the electronic biggies; Apple, or Rogers, or Videotron, the suppliers of your virtual world. You can be sponsored by food companies that supply you with a month of food cuz you can’t go out. You could even have webcam sex with Mike!
But I would think no ordering of food; delivery people would be counted as human contact.
I can’t imagine how you would survive without going out and feeling the air on your face, or meeting people face to face, you being the cafe person that you are.
So I think that makes it a great social experiment, because I don’t think as a race we could survive communicating solely through e-communications. People that isolate themselves from human contact and touch, (as well as animals in nasty animal type behaviour experiments), don’t do well and often have lots of psychological problems.
So go for it! I think it will certainly get your name out there. Put it on U-Tube one day at a time and watch it go viral.
mark christiano Said:
on January 12, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Hey…I have someone with a house that’s empty, up on the Mountain in Haliburton…very isolated!!! and no delivery services at all here!!! Let me know!
You can call your Documentary…’The Shining 2′…lol
Good Luck…Mike!
Mark
wordaddict Said:
on January 12, 2011 at 9:33 pm
haha mike would be fiiiiiine
wordaddict Said:
on January 12, 2011 at 9:33 pm
if i had food delivered i’d leave the money outside and have them leave it at the door… but having a month’s worth of food WOULD be easier!
marlene Said:
on January 12, 2011 at 9:51 pm
if you had a month’s worth of food, you could pass some time cooking and trying out a lot of new recipes you would get off the internet and the people you were e-communicating with. then you could do an off-shoot show on cooking for one and not going crazy
wordaddict Said:
on January 13, 2011 at 2:39 pm
so many possibilities eh???
Word Addict » RANDOM THOUGHTS… Said:
on January 14, 2011 at 6:41 pm
[...] an entire category of options with all types of flicks – self-made, professionally-made, social experiments, ridiculous topics, and more. So here are the top ones I’ve seen – you should try and [...]