One of the ongoing themes of the film is that Favreau's character, Mike, has an obsession with checking his voicemail. Since the film is largely focused on dating and dating etiquette, there were multiple scenes where Mike would get home and check his answering machine obsessively -- did his ex-girlfriend call? Did the girl he met at the bar call? What should he say when leaving voicemail for other women? What happens when the answering machine cuts him off? Should he call back? Will the woman pick up while he is talking to their machine? Who should he put on hold, his ex or the woman from the bar?
Mike was completely dependent on his voicemail, and his home telephone in general, to keep him in contact with anyone and everyone.
I was struck by how hugely social media has changed the landscape of communication today.
I suppose this movement can be separated into a few specific changes, mostly technological advances.
- Caller ID may not qualify as what I think of today as "social media", but it definitely changed the way we communicate by being able to screen calls and choose who we talk to and when.
- The cell phone is an obvious one. You no longer have to be sure someone is at home in order to talk to them.
- E-mail: see You've Got Mail for example. This altered the landscape of communication drastically.
- MySpace, regardless of its popularity (or lack thereof) today, was in many ways the beginning of online communication as we know it. This trailblazing social media site opened up huge possibilities. In respect to dating, this opens the questions way beyond voicemail: What does it mean if he/she sends me a message versus writing on my page? What if they put up pictures of us? If their status says "in a relationship", why did they flirt with me? Etc. etc. What does the message they wrote on their number #4's wall (via Top 8) mean?
- Oh, Facebook. Obvious changes include the ability to link to another user in your relationship status, the ability to tag someone in pictures, and all the glorious poking.
- "Following" another user on Twitter is arguably a pretty casual method of contact. Maybe this is a good way to contact the guy/girl you met on Friday night, rather than a phone call?
This list is certainly not exhaustive. Any other changes you all think are monumental to the current picture of communication?
Anybody else ever feel amazed by how much social media has opened up our streams of communication? Today, instead of checking my home phone's voicemail, I have to pay attention to Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, maybe Myspace, and my cell phone.
Remember what Drew Barrymore's character Mary said in He's Just Not That Into You? "I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he e-mailed me to my BlackBerry, so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting."
I completely agree with you. Its amazing to track the way our technology has increased our obsession with 'being available' to people. For example, when I went home the first time this semester my mother could not believe how much I was on my iPhone; checking Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, and voicemail. However, by the time I went home this weekend, she was used to it.
ReplyDeleteBut my mother did relay some valuable information to me. She is older, and when she was little, there were not even color TVs. She told me that people still made contacts with others, despite the fact that they did not have at least 6 different channels of communication they could use to do so. It made me think about how we would feel if we unplugged the computer, and turned off the cell phone for 1 week. Could we make plans to hang out with our friends? Could we even make new friends? Have we lost our interpersonal communication skills or increased them with all the various means of contacting each other?