The Democratization of Intimacy
Isn't that a great phrase? - "The Democratization of Intimacy" I got that from Stefana Broadbent's talk at TED, How the Internet Enables Intimacy.
It has some great insights into how we have communicated with our family over the years. Imagine:
- many centuries ago, you lived where you worked, whether in a workshop or on the land or roaming the savannah - there was family intimacy
- in medieval cities you had boroughs named after the guilds and professions - again, you have intimacy here
- after the industrial revolution, you have a clear separation of work and family. You clock in, you work, you give your work full attention, you clock out, and then your return to your family. Here, intimacy is lost
- culturally, we sustain this. Kindergartens and schools all emphasise this behaviour pattern. Even when technology was available (ie. the phone), it was still taboo
And now? Now we have social media. We have chat rooms, Skype, Facebook, Twitter and more - unless your company is backward looking.
It's a very different perspective on social media (although Stefana doesn't frame the talk in these terms). Social media isn't just about being social, about conversations, about communication - it enables something a lot deeper - intimacy. Intimacy is leaking into our professional lives, and the change is for the better. Social media has made this a lot more acceptable.
While the technology barriers were lifted many years ago, the cultural ones often remain in place. The habits that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter engender, habits like real-time status updates, synchronous chatting, asynchronous emails, groups, multimedia and more - are now becoming everyday habits. I now expect and demand to work in an environment that lets me use Facebook for example.
This probably has many other implications on attention, and on notions of work/life balance, as well as privacy. But for now, I'm relishing in the cultural change towards a democratization of intimacy.
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