Passive Participation

Today, I have sat waiting, watching...

What I find particulary weird about this form of communication is how easy it is to be a passive participant. Often, blogs are more personal than simply views on topical subjects, and more guarded than a private diary. After all, it's open to the whole internet, it'd be daft to explain personal exploits in too much detail. Naturally, most people are aware of what they are saying to the world at large, and will censor their writing appropriately. But it's easy to underestimate just how much readers can gather about you from these words alone, and how it's possible to piece together a history from snips and slithers of information scattered about the place without you even realising they know. Of course, the fact that it's open to the whole internet doesn't mean the whole internet will read it. But do you ever wonder who actually does?

It's odd to think how many people could pass by without even leaving a mark. Oh, I know that it's highly unlikely that I have any more readers than the ones I am specifically aware of, but the point is, it's possible. If someone is following your conversations as you sit on the bus, you would know who could hear. If you see someone on the street, meet their gaze and immediately turn away, it would be obvious. Here, no change is seen - you could click, and click off, you could read intently and not respond. You could not read it all, and respond to only one part, and yet the assumption lies that you're always listening, you know, even if you've made no discernable signal that expresses that.

That's part of the problem. In conversation, you can judge, most of the time, whether people are listening or not - whether what you're saying is interesting, whether people have heard it before - by how they respond. You choose who to talk to, you hope that someone will listen, you give a little, you take a little. With this form of interaction, it's so easy to participate only one way or another. You could type type type and never know if people have heard, or think that no-one's really listening. You could read read read and people would never know how much you know because you never say a word. It's a bit strange.

Increasingly, I'm finding this kind of passive participation happening more in other aspects of my life. Before, you might rely on phone calls or messengers to relay vital gossip. Now, with facebook, forums and the like, you can find out intimate details about someone's personal life without ever needing to contact them directly. It's amazing how easily people give information away.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.
~Margaret Millar

On the jukebox: The Feeling ~ Strange