{"id":1205,"date":"2008-12-07T06:54:13","date_gmt":"2008-12-07T11:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=1205"},"modified":"2008-12-07T07:02:50","modified_gmt":"2008-12-07T12:02:50","slug":"on-touch-technology-alienating-humans-senses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2008\/12\/07\/on-touch-technology-alienating-humans-senses","title":{"rendered":"On touch, technology alienating humans, senses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Halim brought up a great topic on how computers are <a href=\"http:\/\/tunkuhalim.wordpress.com\/2008\/11\/28\/the-ten-commandments\/\">alienating us<\/a> from the outside world&#8230; (c.f. finding information from the library might take an hour, but a Google search will take all of 30 seconds &#8211; plus don&#8217;t forget they scan books now too).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;&#8221;&#8230;we got out. We saw other people in the street and in the library: a man in a wheelchair, a helpful librarian, folk reading magazines. Although we didn\u2019t speak to anyone, we interacted with them: a nod, a smile, and people saw us too. We were out there in the community.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a pity that our computers have taken us away from other people.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Really though, what have computers taken away from us? <\/p>\n<p>Nodding, smiling? These are nice, polite gestures, but there&#8217;s no love lost, if you don&#8217;t do that (to randoms you find on the road). A really common practice in Australia (especially in the smaller cities, like say, Port Pirie even!), but a not so common one in Malaysia.<\/p>\n<p>We have <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sense\">senses<\/a>. Is it about the senses?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sight &#8211; you can see someone via a video-conference. Google has brought this to GMail, so it can now happen in-browser. Skype has had it for ages&#8230; 3G video calling means you don&#8217;t even need to be chained to your desk<\/li>\n<li>Hearing &#8211; you can already hear a person&#8230; most IM clients now have voice components, and we&#8217;ve had the telephone for ages.<\/li>\n<li>Taste &#8211; I doubt you taste the humans you meet, but maybe this can be locking lips? OK, this is still a in-person thing, if at all<\/li>\n<li>Smell &#8211; no smells through a computer yet&#8230; and smells can evoke emotions&#8230; I know the whiff of hair, or even a some perfume can subtly excite someone, so this is still an in-person thing<\/li>\n<li>Touch &#8211; I think this might be the most important of all the things that computers have taken away from us. Why, later<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, if its a friend, or even an acquaintance, the sight and hearing is all you need. If you&#8217;re intimate with someone, taste, smell, touch make sense&#8230; so its a given, intimacy doesn&#8217;t happen through a computer keyboard.<\/p>\n<p>Touch is important. I dislike touching people, unless I&#8217;m comfortable with them and they&#8217;re in the <i>inner circle<\/i>. The other day, I hugged a close friend I&#8217;d not seen in over a year. It felt good. Closest human contact I&#8217;ve had in a long time (to put it in context, I can&#8217;t even remember the last time this happened). I can see the importance in touch, and I wish it happened more often, I guess<\/p>\n<p>Why do I dislike touching people, as a generalisation? Shaking hands&#8230; rabid passing of germs!<\/p>\n<p>OK, this is getting on to becoming a pointless rant. I don&#8217;t think computers alienate folk &#8211; sight and sound is all you really need, for 95% of your relationships (ok, that number pulled out of the hairs on my arse :P). &#8217;nuff said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Halim brought up a great topic on how computers are alienating us from the outside world&#8230; (c.f. finding information from the library might take an hour, but a Google search will take all of 30 seconds &#8211; plus don&#8217;t forget they scan books now too). &#8220;&#8221;&#8230;we got out. We saw other people in the street [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[592,590,550,591,594,593],"class_list":["post-1205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-inner-circle","tag-people","tag-relationships","tag-senses","tag-technology","tag-touch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-jr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205\/revisions\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}