virtually here

we probably don’t realise it much, but the past decades have been a time of great advancement in communicational technology. people speak of how we have moved from a period of snail mail and postal services to the age of instantaneous contact and boundless communication.

but some fundamental issues don’t change. people search the internet daily for something they need: a product, information, reviews, replies, a vestige of themselves or those they love somewhere. searching the internet becomes a search that never ends, because the intertextuality leads to incessant clicking from one link to another. the search will not end, because when we seem to have found what we thought we were trying to find, we realise there is something else that we also want to find, and we go on and on.

the search also doesn’t end, because the more fundamental and personal search also gets displaced onto the virtual world. too many people stay satisfied within the confines of the indoors, and traverse avidly through gigabytes to try and find something or someone familiar. when we twitter, blog, chat, blog-surf, facebook, we are really trying to make contact with the unknown “you” who might possibly make some sort of reply, some response to let us know we are not alone.

when we get home and find ourselves missing someone or something, we surf, trying to find anything that reminds us of him/her, of a presence that is almost immediately accessible. somewhere in that great out there of google.com, anyone can be found, and is virtually here. we are comforted when we experience that.

makes one wonder how people used to cope with missing people and the yearning for contact. things have definitely become more complicated, but as with reading, the imagination of a few has probably thwarted the imagination of many. no longer are we satisfied with memories, with the daydreaming of a hopeful future; we hang around in virtual space, waiting for waves in that wide web of a world we have no grasp of. having it all in the confines of a computer screen helps, and the only way we stay in control is by our ability to walk away from it, and click to select “shut down”.

and perhaps that is the way to go, once this post is properly published. where else would we find company?