The more expensive conventions are not any better in terms of either learning or making connections. The cheaper ones are not any better at being friendly or creative.

The Social Media Myth is that the ‘organic’, small-scale, newer and less well-known kinds of gatherings are somehow more worthwhile than the organised, larger, older and more conventional conventions. Many times, the gatherings are organised around web technologies such as wikis, the geek’s version of MySpace groups, and Twitter, the geek’s preferred instant messenger.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve turned up at these meetings and been met with a hundred geeks armed with enough technology to ward off alien invaders – laptops, mobile phones, video recorders, and sundry special devices of all shapes and sizes. The meetings are all supposed to be about social networking but everyone is so busy scanning for available WiFi or attempting bluetooth connections, they fail to contact one another on a human level.

Rather than closing the gaps, the technology in these situations is serving as a prophylactic. Perfectly sane people experience disjointed communication, interactions which are cut into pieces by video blogging, live video streaming and all the rest of the paraphernalia usually experienced solo at their desktop. Underneath this frenzy of technical play, often remains a loneliness which characterises many of their lives and to which, post-gathering, they return, having been prevented from achieving the intimacy they so badly need by the technology they have replaced it with.

This situation is maintained by a kind of social group denial, which does not recognise the negative impact of technology, and refuses to see the shadow side of the behaviour. Personally, I find it depressing. I value and enjoy spontaneity and it disturbs me to see tools which are claimed to enhance creativity and connection actually produce the opposite effect. I’d like to see some gatherings where the technology was checked in at the door; I’d like these social media early adopters to put aside their crutches regain their social muscles while they still can.

Camera phone walk through the Big Summer Party held by Chinwag. At the same time, we’re throwing the virtual version in Second Life.

The Count of crookula 23:56
i had at least five comments saying it was the best sound quality they had ever heard