It’s been an interesting journey, watching the chat options and usage change so much over the years around the internet. In some ways I feel like it was more genuine when the only option was a desktop type of computer and chat rooms, forums or other discussion connections online. The advent and proliferation of mobile devices, apps, and so many niche portals has really changed things up in so many ways.
In many ways things are better today, as there is more access from more places. You can text and chat in the bathroom, out in public on a bench, in bed, in someone else’s bed when they fall asleep. Having access via mobile devices give you access during the mile high flights and while hiking in many places as well. This offers many more options for connecting, and many would say people are taking it too far, for example, being glued to their phones in some kind of zombie like addiction while walking, often in dangerous or precarious situations.
Being unaware of your surroundings as you are sucked into your mini digital view with your phone is a common occurrence in the 2010’s. Some point to that getting worse (or better if you want to look at ti that way) – with the advent of smart glasses and other projection technologies that have been advertised as new and coming options.
The amount of apps has certainly divided things in a lot of ways. Some of these are fabulous in my opinion, and some of these ways are making the once-more-crowded chat places more sparse.
I think it’s great that there are all these new niche apps where people can easily go to connect with groups of people with special interests. However it’s creating more niche bubbles and less group meeting of various thoughts and thinking from what I gather. Compared to how chat rooms and forums once were, it’s very different. Also out in the offline world, people are more likely to be glued to their niche app and less likely to talk about things with people you run into out in the streets.
With that being said, I get that that there are things like facebook groups and neighborhood apps and such which are indeed trying to bring more of that group discussion, but many of these are basically walled gardens from what I can tell, you need to be logged in and part of the fbook ecosystem to participate.
This has just been my experience, which is certainly different than others and I understand things are also different in different parts of the world.
I have seen several people talk about trying ways to bridge the divides, getting people to reach out and understand beyond their bubbles. Of course there is quite a lot to be gained by tech giants who use divisions as click bait and walled gardens to keep a captive audience.
There is much more to be said about these things. They have been on my mind for a while.
I have tried to help some people and some systems evolve to open up, and still in the process of pushing for updated ways to chat and communicate. There are many things making modern chat for difficult, and solving problems like weak security chains is taking massive amounts of effort. The good things is many people are working on these challenges, and the general public is becoming more aware of the need for strong protections.
Some of these coming updates and changes are taking much longer than I wished they would, but the evolution is happening, it’s growing, in time things will change more. Let’s hope they create more connections and discussions.
I’ve seen several articles about the growing problems of loneliness. Chat options may be changing, but the desire to connect with others is still the same. All these fake-books and fake-filters for ephemeral photos is forking more fantasy but less facility. Looking forward to less virtual reality and more genuine connection. it may be months or years, it may be part of the evolution into headsets instead of texting head titles, but the revolution of real is certainly a goal in one way or another for the other. It’s really just a matter of time.