As a grad student, I rarely have the opportunity to read for pleasure these days, but one week before classes started up again, I found a moment and went outside with just a book in hand. The book was Michael Harris’s The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection. It sparked in me a fair bit of reflection about the unintended consequences of living in a world that is constantly connected to the Internet. One of the main points in the book—that my generation represents the only one in history that will experience life both with and without the Internet—made me think of how I should consider the implications of our logged-on-lives. I wanted to take a minute to discuss my relationship with the Internet.

It is scary for me to think that when I have kids, the Internet will be something that is natural and therefore something of which they will be barely conscious. Consequently, I think this is a very precious moment for all of us to reflect on moments before and after the Internet began. I took away from my reading of Harris’s book two main points about my own connectivity.

The first is that many online ties are only reflections of my offline life. Harris says, “Arguably, the larger and more productive world that our technologies deliver is simultaneously an impoverished version of the older one—a version that rejects direct experience and therefore rejects an earlier conception of reality that had its own value. We see more, yet our vision is blurred; we feel more things, yet we are numbed.”

Although this comment seems to reject what the online world has to offer, these ideas are reflected in Boyd and Ellison’s work that discusses bridges between online and offline social networks. Boyd and Ellison (2007) have noted that “the available research suggests that most SNSs primarily support pre-existing social relations.” Furthermore, Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007) have argued that Facebook users typically maintain their existing offline relationships or solidify offline connections, as opposed to meeting new people. “These relationships may be weak ties, but typically there is some common offline element among individuals who friend one another, such as a shared class at school” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Much of what these authors are saying reminds me of my mother telling me to get off the computer and go play outside. For me, however, it is important to stay as connected to my offline world as it is to be connected online. There are unique affordances that both worlds have to offer.

For instance, my family lives in Ottawa and rarely do I get to see them. This week I was able to Skype my niece on her birthday. Without Skype, Facebook, and many other social media platforms that the Internet provides, I would be unable to see them grow while I am here in Vancouver.

I think we need to be aware of our connectivity and strive for a balance between our online and offline presences. Obviously it is different for every individual, but reflecting on the ways we spend our time online can give us insights into how we spend our time offline.

Harris describes ‘absence’ as silence, wonder, and solitude, things he believes diminish when we are constantly connected. He wants us to remember what real absence is like and fears that we will all lack absence if we do not strike up a balance. He is neither for nor against connectivity, instead asserting that, like any other part of our lives, we have to check the balance. Once in a while, it is worth reconnecting with our offline selves.

Stop. Reflect. And stay connected.

References

Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 13.1 (2007): 210-30.

Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfeld, and Cliff Lampe. “The Benefits of Facebook “Friends”: Exploring the Relationship between College Students’ Use of Online Social Networks and Social Capital.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12.3 (2007): 1143-68.

Harris, Michael. “The End of Absence: Reclaiming what we’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection.” New York: Current, 2014.