I was in a bus today. Not that special, as I use public transport nearly every day, but in front of me there were to women sitting next to each other, each of them calling somebody. At some moments their two conversations seemed to merge into one, incoherent but synchronized, but both in their own small worlds, seemingly not aware of the world surrounding them.
A similar thing, I think, can be seen in the world as a whole. New communication methods, most of them digital of course, make it possible to talk to people that are at the other end of the world, for free. The real-world communication restraints that limited us are non-existent now.
This development of course positively affects our abilities to consume and produce knowledge, but has, I think, also has a less positive effect: groups become more shielded from the outer world. Groups specialize as it is a lot easier to find group member with exactly the same interests and skills (or at least, almost).
Talking to the man standing next to you at the bus stop is no more; learning new stuff means deliberately searching for it and trying to find the groups that belong to it. Gone is the coincidental new knowledge, gone is the accidental new acquaintance.
Inmiddels enkele jaren blog ik veel te weinig over websites, gebruikersinterfaces, marketing en dingen die me 's nachts wakker houden. Af en toe blog ik op tweakblogs, soms op mijn eigen website, en soms alleen hier. Meer lezen? Zie de artikellijst hieronder.