To be Connected
A retrospect of the second installment of Deep Cuts featuring talks by Nancy Baym, Ewa Westermark and Maria Bergius. All three brings a human perspective to communication. Relevant because we’re at the peak of an era when technology forms behavior instead of the other way around.
I have a very vivid memory of check box in an app. It was in the instant messenger ICQ. It read ”Ping to keep connection alive”. I guess that technically that allowed the app to not disconnect with my peers, even though there was no explicit conversation going on.
It’s a fascinating concept that seems to play out in our lives as well. How you with some people can have a very sporadic relationship, but when it happens the connection is immediately swichted on and alive.
Even more so nowadays when we thru social media can follow our friends lives from a distant. Technology supplies us with devices to help us stay connected.
The irony is that even when we’re connected we continue to feel lonely. Or maybe because of it. The feeling of lying in your bed watching people on Instagram having a good time, pursuing sooo much in their lives.
Loneliness
The Zen Master and best selling author Thich Nhat Hanh writes in his book ”The Art of Communicating” that ”loneliness is the suffering of our times”.
He might very well be right. In a recent survey, 9 millions Brits (14% of the population) reported that the always or often feel lonely. Other research show that social isolation is associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day. To counter loneliness the UK has appointed a Minister of Loneliness last year.
One good cure to loneliness is the capability to belong. Whether it’s family. A nerdy group on Twitter. A Company. A Scene. Or a Church. As Nhat Hanh says:
”A sense of belonging to a greater community improves your motivation, health, and happiness. ”
The Labour To Maintain Relationships
In his essay 1000 True Fans the American technologist Kevin Kelly talks about how big of a following a creatives need to be able to sustain themselves. He writes:
”To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.”
Keyword here is true. Kelly defines a true fans as ”a fan that will buy anything you produce”. However true fans needs to pampered with to stay true, a lot of effort needs to be put into not only making a great product, put also to market, sell and brand it. Essentially. The thing needs to be communicated to have a chance to connect with a human being.
It’s beautiful that the internet has brought creatives the potential to connect directly with fans. At Deep Cuts #2 the American communications researcher Nancy Baym (Microsoft Research) spoke about how the relationship between artists and fans has changed over time. Based on her book Playing to the Crowd she problematizes what the effect of new modes of communication has.
Social Objects
Like a grain of sand in a mussel social objects are the thing in the middle that something, a pearl, can grow on. When you start to think about it, you see them everywhere. The things in life that are conversations starters and reasons to connect with other people. A dish in a restaurant, public art, a swing or a bench in a city a playlist on Spotify.
The Finnish entrepreneur Jyri Engeström has been writing and talking a lot about this. He points out three important questions to answer to design social objects:
- how to make them obligatory point of passage
- how objects make us come back to them
- how meaningful human relationships are built around a renewing of oneself and the object
”The interesting thing about the Social Object is the not the object itself, but the conversations that happen around them.” — Jyri Engeström
At Deep Cuts #2 architect and urban planner Ewa Westermark (Gehl) touched upon this when she spoke about how public space can stimulate interaction and connections between people in cities.
Rooms For Connections
In his seminal work ”The Eyes of the Skin” the Finnish architect Juhanni Pallasmaa write that:
”We remember thru our bodies as much as through our nervous systems”
Pallasmaa continues:
“The ultimate meaning of any building is beyond architecture; it directs our consciousness back to the world and towards our own sense of self and being.”
This is communication. It’s silent. But it affect us more than we think.
Maria Bergius is a priest in the lutheran Church of Sweden. At Deep Cuts #2 she talked about both silent and verbal communication and relationship from three perspectives; with ourself, with other humans and with God.
Outro
As the theme of Deep Cuts #2 and this article hints, there are more connections to be had. There is also a somewhat pretentious reference to Shakespeare’s to be or not to be. That if we don’t connect we doesn’t exist.
I feel like we are at a communications cross roads. That we’re a little lost in what communication to priorities and in a phase of trying to figure out how to connect at larger scales.
Relationships are crucial to humans. It’s thru connections and communication we understand who we are and what the meaning of both life, business and society is. So, let’s keep having a meta conversation about how we want to communicate and how tools to stay connected optimize for humans.
