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In the past few weeks I\’ve come to some startling realizations.

I haven\’t been physically inside a bank since…well, I can\’t remember. A large majority of my contact with friends/family is via electronic means, mostly my computer. I have no idea where my local library is. Since I hate grocery shopping more than anything else, why not just order them and have them delivered? I haven\’t held a paycheck in my hand for five years, thanks to auto-deposit. More of my bills gets paid via electronic means than actually writing out a check. I haven\’t ordered food for delivery via the phone in years.

From conversations, mostly electronic, with friends and co-workers I\’ve found I\’m not outside the norm. In fact, several other people expressed surprise that I do as much by hand as I do. There are some people who awe me with their level of electronic interaction with the world around them.

\”Cogito ergo sum\”, originally expressed by René Descartes (damn French), and is better known to people as \”I think, therefore I exist\”, or more traditionally \”I think, therefore I am\”. I think we\’ve finally reached the point where this is no longer true. Perhaps \”I\’m online, therefore I exist\” is a better way of stating it in today\’s world?

After all, without the use of email, computers, internet (or that \”set of tubes\” for the politically minded), instant messanging, etc can one truly be considered a connected member of our society these days? And yes, I realize the irony of asking this via an online blog. When even the government goes online, for example paying taxes, can it really be considered new technology? If you are not online, do you still exist?

Recently, I had a conversation (via email) with a friend with whom I share no mutual friends. One could consider our friendship \”an outpost\” of human contact. I forget how the topic came up, but it occurred to me, if one of us died, would the other one ever even find out?? Short of the abrupt termination of contact I mean. It then occurred to me that this sort of friendship was not unique in my life. In fact, I could think of several individual friends of which we share no mutual friends, but rather our lives crossed paths at one point, a connection was made and we have remained in contact. In those cases, the rate of electronic communication versus face-to-face contact is the highest.

In my life at least, actual interaction with another human being seems to occur most as part of a social gathering of mutual friends. From conversations with others, it does not appear as if I\’m unusual in this respect.

Now I understand this isn\’t exactly a profound realization, nor do I expect that it is an original one. But it\’s one that occurred to me recently. Now I was surprised to realize I\’m not altogether unhappy to realize this is the case. Certainly, I don\’t feel isolated or shut off from the world. Social gatherings provide me the interaction I desire.

Yet, I was a little disturbed with the realization that there are people in my life with whom my contact has become almost exclusively electronic. Even worse was the realization that I have friends whom the people around me don\’t even realize exist, thanks to the largely electronic means of our communication. Almost as if our social lives have become like a computer network, and in some cases each of us are the single node connecting two distant branches. Just as a single point of failure is dangerous in a computer network, it strikes me as dangerous in real life as well.

As I write this it occurs to me that I should have some statement or purpose to all this. I should give you all a life lesson by which to go forth and better the world. I\’m not upset that I don\’t have one, and I\’m not even sure one is necessary. Indeed, I\’m not certain one could identify this as \”broken\”, therefore no reason to \”fix\” it.

Mostly it is surprising to me how easily this type of existance has crept upon us. And I find myself intrigued in how far this will go and what the results will be. I remember people I once knew being obsessed with games such as \”Everquest\” and more recently \”World of Warcraft\”. I remember my pity for them as they descended single-mindly into a fantasy world, complete with \”online friends\”, \”online social groups\” or even \”online marriages\”. Perhaps they were just ahead of their time? Perhaps in my pity, I was just showing my disgust for the world ahead?