This time round I did not watch a movie. Rather myself. Another post explored the concept of the world that has been at least from time to time a cold, hard and empty place. Technology as a culture came up more than once. And yes that is exactly where we live today. A large part of our interaction with other human beings is via technology. I'm not hitting on technology - I am after all center in the industry. However I don't know if we are really aware of the consequences of the rapid shifts in social behaviour. As for many other singles in the world internet dating is something that I pursue - even if at a low priority. Sunday found me some leisure time which I spent browsing one or two of the sites I subscribe to. To my retrospective horror I was scammed by three different people in the three hours that I spent browsing on Sunday. I now have to have my credit card replaced after I was obliged to stop it and would have considered closing my one Gmail / Hangouts account if it was not that important to me. I don't really consider myself naive when it comes to the internet yet I was caught solidly. This leaves me having to reconsider several of my ideas regarding human behaviour in this case modified by technology. To start off with the internet does not have a face. You are interacting with something not somebody on the other side. By the time that we get to scamming the person on the other side is well aware that they are faceless. The second problem is that with direct human interaction we rely heavily on soft senses such as reading body language and intuition. Body language does not exist on the internet and intuition is often suppressed by the endless verbage selling the idea or concept. Now if all of this seems mechanically clinical I found myself as easily manipulated by a Hangouts or Skype conversation as if the person was standing in front of me. Except once again some of my natural compensating faculties based especially on body language was entirely missing leaving me wide open. End result? I am desperately in need of a new skill set to cope with the very different dynamics of modern day media.
