Personal Notes Regarding The Role of Technology in Human Communication

In the aftermath of the tsunami, I've learned a lot about personal communication on the internet - and while there are many good things related to technology, I can make this personal observation: Human communication still sucks.

There are a few different levels of how this communication sucks:

Media

Using the ARC project as an example, we've found other systems that do actually exist and are being researched by us. But why hadn't we heard about these things before? Some, in fact, have been sponsored in part by large organizations (I believe including the United Nations). So why didn't we know about them?

There's a few reasons, I think. The first reason is that there is no public interest in disaster awareness until a disaster is right on top of us - and also, because we have a tendency to believe that any disaster would be the creation of humans, so we focus on trying to avoid these instead of putting energy toward trying to deal with that which we cannot create. It's a shift from a humancentric worldview to a worldview that is one of extraspection.

But because of that, now, the focus has been on systems that can help detect and avoid them. ARC somehow got into the press, so there it is - in the press. Why is it that the other similar systems didn't make the press? Probably because nobody was interested - including the people who were worst affected by this last disaster. Suddenly there was interest.

Maybe the tsunami served as a subtle reminder that we are not the center of the universe, and that we have to be more aware of the planet which we live on - which is not ours, because it is not one we control. We can affect, but we cannot control.

Weblogs, Blogs, whatever...

There's been a lot of focus in the last few weeks, and in truth, they have done a lot for the tsunami relief efforts. But they've also morphed into free broadcast areas, which lack the distributed component which makes weblogs so powerful. A cacophony of copy and paste voices is exactly what can be found in any broadcast medium, and I don't see that as the future of weblogs, even in disaster scenarios. This is not meant to dissuade people who contribute to such weblogs, but instead perhaps make them consider how they contribute.

This may seem overly critical. But let's face facts - what a weblog that simply centralizes information is becomes less of a weblog and more of an aggregation of information. There's a power of distributed networks that is lost when one site becomes centralized for only certain information. And there's also a responsibility.

I'd have to say that weblogs are part of the future - but that the need to have them separated in some cases is necessary. As with any group weblog, some things can get synthesized completely out - just like news in any traditional news medium. Look out, we've reinvented the wheel again. 'New and Improved'? New, no. Improved? Maybe.

Interpersonal Communication

I've rediscovered some alarming things about dealing with people via email in these last few weeks. It's disturbing when people don't read an entire email thread before they respond, and even more alarming when people don't read a message in entirety, thus removing (censoring) the very content of the message itself. That's a travesty, and reeks of intellectual laziness - and perhaps argumentativeness.

But the latter is a human issue - even as we have discussions, it becomes apparent that some people are not listening to what is being said - instead, they listen to argue what is being said, and place everything that they hear in that context. It's a very sad thing, but it's a real issue.

Tribal News

The problem with tribal news is that, if you are not a part of the tribe - you are sometimes perceived as an outsider with something to gain. When you have smart mobs, you have to expect them to also do dumb things as well.

Perhaps it is time for humanity to move past these problems - they are not new problems. They are actually tribal issues. But these days, tribes are not related to culture, creed, race or geography.

The next time you see a glowing post about communication, please think of what has to be improved.