J-scribe

I know I’m not the first to ask this question, but do you ever wonder what technology and cyberspace have done to intimacy?

A week ago I received a raunchy text message on my mobile from somebody called Jason and he referred to me, “the hottest chick (he’d) ever known”, as Moni. Problem is, I don’t know a Jason and I don’t go by the pseudonym ‘Moni’. Evidently, he was really going to miss ‘Moni’ (wherever she was going) and he wanted to “get with her”. The rest is too raunchy for j-scribe’s censors, but it was a tender love story if ever I heard one (not!).

Anyway, I was tempted to text back “Sorry Jason, I don’t know who you were trying to contact but my name’s John” but I resisted. Instead, I chided him and said that while I was flattered, I wasn’t ‘Moni’. Jason wasn’t perturbed, though…he just asked me who I was and expressed interest in obtaining my (silent) home number! Perhaps he’s a friend of Shane Warne’s? Suffice it to say, I didn’t reply.

Then there’s Facebook…I’m a recent convert and a huge fan of this Web 2:0 phenomenon which bills itself as a “social utility that connects you with the people around you”. Critics diss it as a set of loosely connected high-school style cliques…a time-wasting device worthy of banning in the workplace. OK, so they have a point about the time-wasting effect, but it’s much more than a bunch of cliques. On this US-based site with universal appeal, hundreds of thousands of people (most of them admittedly much younger than me) link themselves to one another across cultures, time zones and continents; debate the world around them – from their backyards to far off international conflicts; send each other gifts and share their histories in diary entries, sound, vision and still photography.

There’s real intimacy in this phenomenon…people caring and sharing across the barriers that divide us. I've watched the lovers among my students exchange poorly disguised, intimate messages with one another and smiled knowingly. But there’s also a degree of voyeurism that gives rise to some concern. People visit each other’s ‘Facebooks’ and watch and wait and explore the lives of those who seem to expose almost as much of themselves as they would in a secret diary (me included!). Sure, the same sort of watching-from-a-distance has always been a feature of old-fashioned ‘courting’ but there’s something perverse about the knowledge that someone could be lurking in your photo album – even though some lurkers may be very welcome! The safeguards are there – you can lock out anyone but your approved friends from private sections of your ‘Facebook’ - but I still wonder if I’ve revealed too much of me and hear my mother's voice in my head "You know on A Current Affair the other night there was a story about Facebook stalkers..."

There’s also the ‘poking’ craze on Facebook. 'Poking' involves the user clicking on a pointed finger which sends an alert to the recipient with the effect of letting them know they're being thought of. I expressed disinterest and confusion about the significance of ‘poking’ other ‘Facebookers’ but then went ‘poking mad’…until an ex student explained that it was innuendo rich. “Oh, I get it, a double entendre!” I said. It was too late though…I’d already poked everyone I could find on Facebook with whom I had any kind of tenuous connection! Apparently, I’ve been quite the promiscuous ‘Facebooker’. Did you know you can also ‘Superpoke’ someone? This could involve all manner of raunchy acts or, alternatively, such silly, but strangely rewarding, actions as throwing a cartoon chicken or sheep at your Facebook buddy!

Of course, there’s also that antiquated medium – email. There was a mid-90’s Meg Ryan film titled ‘You’ve Got Mail’ which explored the notion of online intimacy as a springboard for meaningful relationships (in that shallow Hollywood way, of course). But critics hailed email as the end of letter writing and real passion in written communication. I beg to differ. For me it has the air of Regency romanticism and I reckon Jane Austen would have used the device to great effect. I can visualise it now… .Instead of Lizzie Bennett taking a walk in the woods to try to conquer her passion for the delectable Darcy with his latest servant-delivered note in hand, she’d be at the kitchen table with her laptop (in between writing her PhD thesis and taking calls on her mobile) face-flushed and breathless every time her ‘inbox’ lit up. In the hands of good communicators, email has all the potential power of the most candid and intimate written expression of desire…but with instantaneous impact! Jane would have surely loved it.

Which brings me to blogging…I see ‘blogdom’ as a forum for interactive journalism…kind of like a written version of live broadcasting. And, speaking as a broadcaster, I’ve always found that kind of communication very intimate and seductive. I’m yet to receive any raunchy user comments at j-scribe, though. Jason, are you out there?    [read more]