Ambient Awareness And Digital Intimacy

You see an old high school friend while shopping for your next pair of underwear.  You stop briefly to catch-up on ‘old times’ only to find it’s almost like you never were apart.  Sherri had a baby and John just had a killer bachelor party, yadda yadda yadda.  This phenomenon is known as ‘ambient awareness’.  Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have made following your friends, families and co-workers daily lives effortless.

Many non-early adopters ask, why do I care that Matt ate toast this morning or thinks that AT&T is an epic failure as a wireless provider?  With occasional browsing the updates seem really boring, perhaps even absurd to even waste time reading.  Keep following those status updates and tweets, soon a digital picture begins to emerge in your head.  You begin to tune into the flow of your friends daily lives and know their day-to-day triumphs and tribulations.  This is known as digital intimacy.

Digital intimacy is increasing on a monthly basis with the evolution of ‘real-time’ platforms.  Thousands of users squawked when Facebook updated to their freshly designed home page with information popping up in their users feeds faster than ever before.  After a few months most adjusted to the new speed of information and the ground swell subsided.

So with this new ambient awareness of your network, you will find yourself feeling strangely close to your friends even though you rarely see them.  When you do stumble across them you pick up your conversation where it left off online.  This is not an unproven theory, I catch myself doing it all the time.  The more I scan my networks the closer I feel digitally to my friends.  But sometimes too much digital digestion can be a bit stressful.

This stress has led to many digital mavens to start adopting convergence tools like FriendFeed or simply skimming on the platforms they currently use when they have ample time.

Users who create more content are much more likely to have more digital visibility and are also more likely to have digital awareness of their network.  Content creates conversation and will foster more time spent digesting and engaging in the conversation.  This closeness drawn from conversation and interaction will foster more digital awareness of their network, especially those who engage with that users content.

That begs the question, are you in the conversation?