Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Ambient Awareness.

breaking up isn't the same anymore, is it? even just a few years ago, for me at least, breaking went something like this: "it's not you, it's me. here's the things you left at my apartment. see you around! oh, and it was nice while it lasted!" and then i would walk away from my ex. hands were washed clean, and it was done quickly. but today, we're so hyper-connected that it seems making a clean break isn't so easy anymore. we may have connections via Facebook, Twitter and instant message. add in text messaging, blogging for me... and that's a lot of different places to be connected to someone. so when you stop being in a relationship, and when you need to make a clean break, i'm learning that perhaps you not only have to cut people out of your heart, but you need to make some cuts digitally too. sad, but true. think "ambient awareness."

last year, the New York Times ran a piece in their Sunday magazine on this notion of ambient awareness in this new digital age. on a subject within the story becoming an avid Twitter user:

"But as the days went by, something changed. Haley discovered that he was beginning to sense the rhythms of his friends’ lives in a way he never had before. When one friend got sick with a virulent fever, he could tell by her Twitter updates when she was getting worse and the instant she finally turned the corner. He could see when friends were heading into hellish days at work or when they’d scored a big success. Even the daily catalog of sandwiches became oddly mesmerizing, a sort of metronomic click that he grew accustomed to seeing pop up in the middle of each day.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life."

when first starting a relationship, ambient awareness has been a bit of an advantage, for me at least. we can be surrounded by each other digitally - via Twitter, Facebook, instant message and what have you. we can get in touch with each other and be connected in half a dozen different ways. and it also allows for the learning curve of getting to know each other to be shortened a bit. we can follow each other on Twitter. you can read my blogs. we can go through each others Facebook archives and photos... we can learn snippets about each others past to piece together each others histories and then in real time, we can begin seeing each others current daily rhythm. (although... i recognize that there's a lot of self-editing taking place online... so you learn a version of me that i've chosen to present. there still might be some skeletons in the closet you have yet to learn...) and admittedly, i've also been strangely comforted because of ambient awareness. something as simple as a silly green dot makes me feel better. i log onto GoogleTalk, my instant messaging service of choice, and i see your little green dot that represents a status of being available... and i just feel like you're there for me. i might not have anything to say to you at all, but the green dot and the idea of you being available warms me.

but what then happens when you want to or need to cut someone out of your life? that ambient awareness grates on you. something as little as seeing your ex's now ugly and discomforting green dot on GoogleTalk becomes irritating. they are present - you see their green dot afterall... so why aren't they reaching out and talking to you? or maybe you see the now ex  update their Twitter status. they are indeed at their computer so why aren't they updating or pinging you? once comforted and excited by seeing and feeling someone everywhere, having that ambient awareness... you might just grow to hate it once the loving is gone. and to remedy the situation? you un-friend the ex on Facebook. you might block them on your IM/chat client. you stop following them on Twitter because sometimes, you just need to cut cords, literally... the blessing and curse of ambient awareness. we're in a new age, for sure. wouldn't you say?