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This is Your Tech Life

The weather has turned, and now I am feeling restless. My eyes are glazed as I look down at the timestamp on the lower right-hand side of my screen. There is a mere splinter of sunlight on the brick wall outside our window and oh, how it makes my foot tap, my chest tighten. Can I stand another moment on my computer? I wonder.

It used to be that if we could escape the cubicle, we could escape the aimless sound of settling that ticks off nine-to-five. Now, we want to escape the sitting. We want to escape the screen. The poor cubicle isn’t forcing our dreams to hunch over; the screen inside of it is.

People are envious of me because of the cubicle thing. I work remotely, which means my dining room table is my office. Ask any other remote or freelance or location-independent worker however, and they will agree with me: it’s lonely. When you can work wherever you want, the path of least resistance is to sit inside your house all day and meet people through the Internet.

Social disconnection isn’t really the Internet’s fault though. People waved to neighbors from their porches until air conditioning arrived. Now, I don’t meet my neighbors until the fire alarm goes off and we all wait outside for the fireman’s clearance. I don’t even bring my computer; everything I own that matters is in the cloud.

Back online, here is my indulgence: I like visiting a person’s About page and studying their photo. I like turning my head to examine the wrinkle on their chin when they smile. And I like looking into their eyes. Indeed we are on the Internet, in part, because it allows us to stare.

I am intoxicated with my Internet life until I live my real life. Where all the senses inform my experience, not just what goes on inside my head. I particularly like going out for dinner and drinks because the service industry has not let go of looking you in the eye – their tip depends on the mysterious and momentary connection that results. And then there is running and because I recently sold my car, bicycling. I like when the humidity suffocates your lungs and you can feel everything in the air pushing back on you and yet, you move forward.

So, there are days I want to take the web middleman from his place between me and the rest of the world never to return. But my relationship with the web is a paradox. I can’t imagine life without it. And it is here that I want to say we should stop looking down at our computers, and down at our phones, and down at the rest of the screens that will inevitably arrive during the the rest of our lives. We should rebel.

We should look up.

But I cannot do this myself.  And so I feel the stillness pooling in the bottom of sitting muscles no matter if I go for a run or a drink. And the glow of the screen lights my face. If we were in a movie, this would be the doomsday ending. But somehow, I think it will all be okay.

By Rebecca Healy

My goal is to help you find meaningful work, enjoy the heck out of it, and earn more money.

18 replies on “This is Your Tech Life”

‘Back online, here is my indulgence: I like visiting a person’s About page and studying their photo. I like turning my head to examine the wrinkle on their chin when they smile. And I like looking into their eyes.’
Ah, we all have our indulgences, do we not? Mine is checking out CVs, if people happen to put them out in the public domain. Might explain why I ‘snoop’ around LinkedIn as much as I do!

Just curious,  people say the eyes are the windows into the soul – do you feel you can do the same when you look into a person’s eyes via their photo?

I love resumes too! Brazen Careerist has a group where people can post their resumes and other people can review them – I am addicted! Ha. 
I don’t know about the soul, but I am always trying to figure out what’s going on behind what people make public on the Internet. If this is really who they are and what motivates them… and probably if I can recognize myself in them. 

I have constantly been telling myself to check out Brazen Careerist, but the resume reviewing sounds so great and I need to do that. Thanks!

This is true. 100% of it. You captured it so concisely and so well.

So much of us and so many of us are craving that face-to-face. I think it’s an innately human-social trait. When we don’t get it, we stunt our development, no matter how awesome we are at computer stuff.

While I was on maternity leave I wasn’t getting out much because of the baby and my car was out of commission and I really believe that Facebook kept me sane sometimes, just to feel like I was part of the world.

On the flip side of that, it wasn’t uncommon to find me nursing and checking emails at the same time. It didn’t take me long to realize how quickly that this baby won’t be a baby forever and I better look up quick. 

And the line about the internet allowing us to stare? Brilliant and so true. 

I totally know what you mean. Facebook often becomes the substitute to real life, new baby or not! It’s interesting to hear how you are transitioning after having a baby. I’m sure it makes living in the now all the more present… would love to hear more about that! And thanks for the comment :)

I’ve met a lot of wonderful people on the Web.  I like them as much as I like my local friends.  What  I love most about people I meet is that they always give me a new perspective – sometimes on things I thought I knew well.  My local friends are good at this too but the difference is not as pronounced.

You’re right.  It will all be OK.

Yes, it’s easy to meet a wide variety of people on the web, both those who you can relate to better than in real life as well as those who are completely different. That is a big plus. Thanks for the comment!

I love this and can completely relate to getting lost in peoples’ “About” pages.

It frustrates me when people argue that technology has contributed to a social disconnect because it really is what you make it; it is possible to achieve balance if you want it! I’ve found that, for the most part, our social circles are formed of people that we met out of convenience or just chance – you moved to a new city and your friends are those you work with or go to school with or your roommates. The internet has allowed us to seek out relationships with people of our choosing based on common interests, similar backgrounds, or simply because you think that their blog is hilarious, rather than choosing relationships just because these people happen to be there. I noticed recently that most of the people that I hang out with now are people that I met through tumblr and I’m so grateful for those relationships. So, and I realize how corny this sounds as I type it, the internet has contributed to a much more fulfilling and gratifying social life than the one I had before it.

I think that it will all be okay so long as we remember that balance is possible.

I really like your synopsis about how we form social circles… but I think it’s more difficult to find the balance thing than we give ourselves credit for, particularly because of the reasons you mention. I’ve met hundreds, if not thousands of people over the past five years, but it’s the people I met online who have been a consistent presence in my life despite moves, life changes, and so on and so forth. And, I live in DC now, so there are a lot of start-up/tech as well as bloggers and other social media people here that I really like hanging out with. When I lived in Madison? Not so much. I like having friends in all different walks of life, but I just want to reiterate that the balance thing is super hard particularly if there is nothing going on in your city, or if your put in a position where you don’t see people regularly. At least for me! Incidentally, I was going to call this post The Tech/Life balance, since I I think we struggle with that more than we struggle with work/life balance now, but it didn’t make the cut :) Thanks for your great comment.

Ah, I think you’re right that I definitely take for granted living in a city. I actually went home to Western Massachusetts for a weekend while my father was away and had the house to myself. I didn’t speak to anyone for three days. 

[…] Work, that of pursuing a specific passion or purpose, has become irrelevant. As technology increasingly gains momentum, we’ve moved from the age of work/life blur to the age of tech/life blur. […]

Powerful. I have to have you. You are a kindred soul. I completely respect everything you are saying here and doing in your recent post, but please take us with you. I need your help and advice. I’ve known all these things you are saying and have been fighting for them myself for years, but I’m screwed at the money part. How do I finance my children and stay sane, whole? Thank you one million for being a voice of reason. I so,so so appreciate you.

Xo

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