Streaming isolation

I have been thinking about this a lot lately.   How it feels like there is less common ground to talk about.   How not sharing radio or tv shows has broken some string that connected us together.   I guess I felt this string before streaming because I often didn't have tv and was amazed at the emotional connection people have talking about a show.

Mat Pat said it better.

Yes, the "fractured narrative" is something people have been observing and talking about for a long time, and probably the phenomenon itself is much older than the conversation about it, but the internet, and especially what they call internet 2.0, has no doubt poured gas on that fire.

It's a double-edged sword, innit. The Zuckerbergs and Dorseys had a dream that nerdy kids in small towns with nobody to talk to about their boutique interests would be able to find each other...and indeed, here we are talking permaculture: I'm pretty sure approximately none of my geographical neighbors do so much as compost, but with a few keystrokes I've found a community where all the composting and recycling and gardening and DIY stuff I've been doing is barely scratching the surface.

On the other hand it means if you pluck two people off the same street they are likely to have much less in common "culturally" than they probably would have 30 or 50 or 100 years ago. (Though as a lifelong contrarian/iconoclast it still feels like most other people are pretty darn similar to each other, including what they watch/listen to and talk about.)

I'm not convinced this is bad though. Actually I'm quite relieved there is less pressure today than in the past for me to pay attention to the news, the local football team, to eat the same pizza and burgers and boring casseroles every night as my neighbors, to listen to the same crappy top 40, etc. I crave knowledge, and access to various virtual communities is great for that. But I do not crave conformity, and very much crave the opposite.

I guess the one new important skill required for this brave new world is to be able to encounter people with opposing, orthogonal views and be okay with it. There's room in this world for people who don't think like me, who don't agree with me, who believe a different story. There's even room for people who hate me, as long as that hate doesn't become violence or oppression. We can still get along as neighbors.

^That is a very unnatural shape for humans to be able to put their minds into, of course, but it is possible, and I think necessary.

There is a lot that can go into this subject.

A diversified but accessible availability of a lot of content allows people to go down the rabbit holes of their choosing to learn. This however can lead to some 'echo chamber' phenomenon if someone isn't grounded in the topics that are of interest locally by people. For someone to not feel isolated, there needs to be a balance struck.

This can be difficult when people utilize content as an escape or dopamine button and have to do things that don't allow them access to that content. There is an emotional tie established and when others whom you converse with don't share the same feelings it can then effect you emotionally because you cannot converse about that thing that holds some weight in your feelings. It isn't something wrong with a person as an individual, but it makes us challenge our self perceived identity and that can create some cognitive dissonance.

People are fascinating, I don't know if my perspective is right but I love fleshing out ideas. Sometimes it is about Permies related things while other times it might be about the local sports team. Diversified interests where we can make connections with others keep, at least myself, us feeling connected to our neighbors and internet acquittances.

Timothy Norton wrote:There is a lot that can go into this subject.

A diversified but accessible availability of a lot of content allows people to go down the rabbit holes of their choosing to learn. This however can lead to some 'echo chamber' phenomenon if someone isn't grounded in the topics that are of interest locally by people. For someone to not feel isolated, there needs to be a balance struck.

This can be difficult when people utilize content as an escape or dopamine button and have to do things that don't allow them access to that content. There is an emotional tie established and when others whom you converse with don't share the same feelings it can then effect you emotionally because you cannot converse about that thing that holds some weight in your feelings. It isn't something wrong with a person as an individual, but it makes us challenge our self perceived identity and that can create some cognitive dissonance.

People are fascinating, I don't know if my perspective is right but I love fleshing out ideas. Sometimes it is about Permies related things while other times it might be about the local sports team. Diversified interests where we can make connections with others keep, at least myself, us feeling connected to our neighbors and internet acquittances.

In not sure I fully get what you're saying. A specific example might help, because it seems like you have one in mind.

The video gives a good example of the echo chamber problem.   How we had a lot of progress away from discrimination during the last years of the 20th century,  and how without a unifying cultural narrative, extreme views are becoming the norm again.

I was rambling there wasn't I...

I think a more concise statement would be that observing some individuals, those people put all of their time in a few interests. They consume media that align with those interests. This can then have the negative effect of the feeling of isolation and cognitive dissonance when trying to talk to someone who does not have the knowledge basis of that specific interest. To feel closer to community, trying to keep a diverse range of not necessarily interest but even superficial knowledge can be beneficial.

Part of this has to do, in my mind, that people are now not forced to interact as much on a face to face basis and lost the soft skills of developing relationships. Small talk and banter have their place. I talk to people on a forum very different than I do face to face. Talking to a real breathing human being can be intimidating for some and in turn they try to avoid it. This can inadvertently lead them to isolation and a vicious circle of avoidance/stress.

An example - I, like many of us, am really into gardening and permaculture. I consume a lot of Permie related media. The only people in my local area that might share similar interests are gardeners and most are following a victory garden style garden. I however prize the community that I live in and want to make bonds with people who don't share this interest. I can not consume a lot of media related to my local as it is not as available but I make the choice to pay for a local paper so I can at least have an idea of what is going on in the area. This knowledge allows the formation of relationships even if it starts as small talk. The first few times talking to people can be PAINFUL, but it gets easier with time. It gets especially easier when people start going "Hey, aren't you that Tim guy?" and your introductions are already semi-done!

Timothy Norton wrote:I was rambling there wasn't I...

I think a more concise statement would be that observing some individuals, those people put all of their time in a few interests. They consume media that align with those interests. This can then have the negative effect of the feeling of isolation and cognitive dissonance when trying to talk to someone who does not have the knowledge basis of that specific interest. To feel closer to community, trying to keep a diverse range of not necessarily interest but even superficial knowledge can be beneficial.

Part of this has to do, in my mind, that people are now not forced to interact as much on a face to face basis and lost the soft skills of developing relationships. Small talk and banter have their place. I talk to people on a forum very different than I do face to face. Talking to a real breathing human being can be intimidating for some and in turn they try to avoid it. This can inadvertently lead them to isolation and a vicious circle of avoidance/stress.

An example - I, like many of us, am really into gardening and permaculture. I consume a lot of Permie related media. The only people in my local area that might share similar interests are gardeners and most are following a victory garden style garden. I however prize the community that I live in and want to make bonds with people who don't share this interest. I can not consume a lot of media related to my local as it is not as available but I make the choice to pay for a local paper so I can at least have an idea of what is going on in the area. This knowledge allows the formation of relationships even if it starts as small talk. The first few times talking to people can be PAINFUL, but it gets easier with time. It gets especially easier when people start going "Hey, aren't you that Tim guy?" and your introductions are already semi-done!

Whoops, lost track of this conversation, but found it now!

I had several thoughts when reading your comment, approximately one per paragraph--and thanks for the example, btw. I think I understand better what you mean, and I have thoughts about that too.

It's hard to untangle individual-level observations from trends. Like personally, I would say I could be categorized as a shy extrovert: I like talking to people, and talking to people charges me up, and if I go a day without talking to people enough then I feel "off"...but I also experience discomfort at the thought of approaching someone to talk, and if there's a crowd or even a small group, forget about it, I'm headed the other way. This has implications on how likely I am to strike up a conversation with a stranger (somewhat unlikely), hold up my end of a conversation (extremely likely), enjoy the conversation and keep it going (extremely likely), and feel like part of a community (extremely unlikely).

But the important part is, I can talk to almost anyone about anything, because generally speaking my interests are a mile wide and (mostly end up being) an inch deep. So I've got a buddy who looks at me like I've got 2 heads if I start talking about earthen floors and "kill your lawn", but we connect a ton over woodworking and parenting. I know another guy who I don't relate to at all when it comes to rooting for sports teams or driving fast cars (he's really into doing both; I'm not) but we can talk about music and food all day. I have one neighbor who I enjoy talking to a lot, but the only topics we've ever talked about are dogs and homemade maple syrup.

But this will be very different from person to person no matter what generation they're from and how acclimated they are to staring at screens. Not everyone is like me, and actually most people are not like me in most ways. For example, most people crave a strong sense of community in geographic proximity around them. I've never really had it, so maybe it's one of those "don't know what you're missing" things but I see that as a bonus rather than a basic need.

This pattern of individual variation with big implications for what you're describing extends to other things too, because so much of our comfort at talking to people and bridging gaps occurs because of how and where we were raised.

Okay, now I'm the one who's rambling...here's a story that happened recently, just to illustrate some of this:

I had had the kids all day so when my wife got home around 4 I took a walk around the neighborhood by myself. It was wet out--raining on and off--and bitter cold so I wore my fleece lined camo cargo pants, and my warmest coat which also happens to be camo, and my rabbit-fur hat. My nose quickly reddened and dripped. I probably looked nuts.

As I walked past an empty wooded lot (the only one in our neighborhood) I froze because I saw movement and sure enough my eyes quickly located two adult female deer, both of them standing with their ears and noses pointed right at me. I didn't want to stay frozen there mid-stride, in the "bigfoot pose", so I resumed but in ultra-slow-motion, so I could keep looking at the deer without spooking them. It's fun to see deer.

Then coming toward me way up ahead on the sidewalk I saw a gray-haired man walking with a red and white umbrella over his head. I decided I looked weird enough, better to at least keep walking as well like a normal person. So I gently resumed speed, noting that the deer watched me go but otherwise remained put. As I got close to the man, I nodded hello, then pointed behind me to where the deer were and said just above a whisper: "There's two deer over there--"

But the man didn't look at me, and kept marching past, and as he passed me I heard him say over and over, either to himself or to someone on an earpiece I couldn't tell, "I have a red and white umbrella. I have a red and white umbrella. I have a red and white umbrella..."