*IDEAorange

I’ve been a bit obsessed with tech­nol­ogy and mod­ern cul­ture recently. Maybe immersed in it is more accu­rate. This morn­ing I had my first real paper cup and a string com­mu­ni­ca­tion moment in a tech­no­log­i­cal space. Twit­ter is like a shout down a long hall­way. Today I heard this call from far away. earth­quake. It was like lis­ten­ing in the old CB [cit­i­zen band radio] days and catch­ing some­thing of inter­est in the chat­ter. Find­ing the sig­nal through the noise.

I was watch­ing all the tweets come in. Folks talk­ing about their houses shak­ing, call­ing their par­ents, broth­ers, sis­ters. Check­ing in from all geo­graphic loca­tions. It’s an immer­sion into the col­lec­tive. It is really an absence of one­ness. There is a feel­ing of being just a small part of the universe.

Then when the chat­ter had moved on to other sub­jects and the most recent rise of chat­ter called a halt to every­thing — the sys­tem had been over­whelmed — I had the chance to stop, step back and look at the beauty of this inter­face with those known and unknown. The exten­sion of my social sphere. I could look and see the beauty of the mes­sage as designed and dis­played in the flat­ness of my screen. In my social browser, Flock.

It’s been an extra­or­di­nary day.

Tags: earth­quake, twit­ter, cul­ture, design, news, tech­nol­ogy