Tell me about couples and surfing!
May. 30th, 2006 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI'm about to write my next Wired column. I've decided it's going to be about the effect of information addiction on the life of couples. And I'd like your help, because I don't want it just to be me going on about me. But naturally it starts with me, what I've observed in my own life. Here's a photo of me and my then-girlfriend (she's now happily married to someone else) Shizu, back in 2002.
We're sitting at breakfast, each glued to our iBooks. Now, I'm not sure if there's anything "wrong" with this picture. If we were reading newspapers, nobody would think it terribly strange. We're both nerdy people who thrive on a constant flow of information. Not all of our life together was spent staring at a computer screen. But quite a lot of it was.
In a sense it was a life-saver: crammed together in a tiny Tokyo apartment, our iBooks gave us a sense of "electronic personal space" which filled out the limited physical space. Each screen was like a virtual private room we could retreat into.
But I'm also interested in the problems that "information couples" run into. I know that I don't really watch TV any more. I'm online all the time. But whereas a couple watching TV, curled up on a sofa together, may have felt "together", a couple surfing on two wifi laptops are visiting different sites, having different experiences. They seem more apart than together. The internet age feels less communal than the TV age did.
So how does surfing impact on your relationship? Is one of you more info-addicted than the other? If so, is there a sense that the less-addicted partner is some kind of "information widow" (or widower)? Bereaved by the internet? Does one of you have more to do online than the other? Does the first one to be bored online dictate some offline activities, or does the one who wants to stay online longest make the other one click around aimlessly for hours?
What about surfing as a form of sociability: do you e-mail each other interesting website addresses? Do you tend to visit the same kinds of sites? I know that when Hisae and I are surfing, language divides us: I'm visiting English-language sites, she's on Japanese ones. But quite a lot of our interaction is me asking her for explanations of things, Japanese stuff I don't understand. When that's going on, we'll either bring up the same page on two machines, or huddle around one. It's actually more sociable than TV. (Of course, maybe the TV is on at the same time.)
What about more dubious areas: are you secretly looking at porn with your partner right there in the room? Are you flirting with someone else, messaging someone? Because the weird thing about this technology is that it makes what's distant seem closer than what's close. Absent people can have more presence than present people. Or do you look at porn together? What about YouTube videos? Is surfing turning back into TV-watching?
What's the sound of a couple surfing? Dead silence, broken only by the sound of two tapping keyboards (quite a pleasant sound, actually)? Is music playing, and if so, who chooses it? Is choosing which iTunes accesses the sound sticks via Airport Express the new fight for the TV remote?
And how close or far apart are you physically when you surf? Are you lying on the same sofa, legs intertwined, laptops touching lids, or sitting at opposite ends of the house on imposing desktops?
Tell me about couples and surfing. I'd like, if I may, to use some of your comments in my Wired piece, so please tell me your full name (or the name you'd like to be known by in the piece). If your comments are off the record, say so. And if you don't want your partner to know you're spilling the beans to Momus, tilt your screen away now.
We're sitting at breakfast, each glued to our iBooks. Now, I'm not sure if there's anything "wrong" with this picture. If we were reading newspapers, nobody would think it terribly strange. We're both nerdy people who thrive on a constant flow of information. Not all of our life together was spent staring at a computer screen. But quite a lot of it was.
In a sense it was a life-saver: crammed together in a tiny Tokyo apartment, our iBooks gave us a sense of "electronic personal space" which filled out the limited physical space. Each screen was like a virtual private room we could retreat into.
But I'm also interested in the problems that "information couples" run into. I know that I don't really watch TV any more. I'm online all the time. But whereas a couple watching TV, curled up on a sofa together, may have felt "together", a couple surfing on two wifi laptops are visiting different sites, having different experiences. They seem more apart than together. The internet age feels less communal than the TV age did.
So how does surfing impact on your relationship? Is one of you more info-addicted than the other? If so, is there a sense that the less-addicted partner is some kind of "information widow" (or widower)? Bereaved by the internet? Does one of you have more to do online than the other? Does the first one to be bored online dictate some offline activities, or does the one who wants to stay online longest make the other one click around aimlessly for hours?
What about surfing as a form of sociability: do you e-mail each other interesting website addresses? Do you tend to visit the same kinds of sites? I know that when Hisae and I are surfing, language divides us: I'm visiting English-language sites, she's on Japanese ones. But quite a lot of our interaction is me asking her for explanations of things, Japanese stuff I don't understand. When that's going on, we'll either bring up the same page on two machines, or huddle around one. It's actually more sociable than TV. (Of course, maybe the TV is on at the same time.)
What about more dubious areas: are you secretly looking at porn with your partner right there in the room? Are you flirting with someone else, messaging someone? Because the weird thing about this technology is that it makes what's distant seem closer than what's close. Absent people can have more presence than present people. Or do you look at porn together? What about YouTube videos? Is surfing turning back into TV-watching?
What's the sound of a couple surfing? Dead silence, broken only by the sound of two tapping keyboards (quite a pleasant sound, actually)? Is music playing, and if so, who chooses it? Is choosing which iTunes accesses the sound sticks via Airport Express the new fight for the TV remote?
And how close or far apart are you physically when you surf? Are you lying on the same sofa, legs intertwined, laptops touching lids, or sitting at opposite ends of the house on imposing desktops?
Tell me about couples and surfing. I'd like, if I may, to use some of your comments in my Wired piece, so please tell me your full name (or the name you'd like to be known by in the piece). If your comments are off the record, say so. And if you don't want your partner to know you're spilling the beans to Momus, tilt your screen away now.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-30 01:23 pm (UTC)How I missed this the first time around can probably be attributed to caffeine withdrawal. Feel free to refer to me as Xtina, should you use my comments. :)
[regarding my girlfriend]
She has a laptop, and I have a desktop. (Or, I'm visiting her in NY, and I'm on their house desktop.) I think of her as being more info-addicted than I am, but mostly because I think she has a brain of holding in her skull. Strangely, the person who stays online longer is the person that is being visited. Which makes me wonder what would happen if I had a laptop and was visiting her...
Our site visitings overlap a bit, but we do visit different sites a lot. We email each other all sorts of things, depending on the day. I rarely look at porn around others, and while I'm sure she looks at erotica at some point while we're surfing together, I'm fairly certain it's within the context of writer/editor, not necessarily consumer.
I'm guessing she flirts with others more often than I do when we're both surfing, but that's mostly because she's on IM more often. *shrugs*
The person being visited usually plays the music, unless the idea of music hasn't come up, or if the visitor has something interesting to share. We're usually conscientious about not playing music the other person dislikes too much, and sometimes will get into discussions about music.
We're often in the same room, sometimes touching, often not. I can't speak for her, but when I'm online, I prefer not to be consistently touched. I get very focused on online stuff, and being touched drags me away. (It's a soft preference, so if we're already touching, I most likely won't pull away.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-30 01:56 pm (UTC)It's very funny to read this and see how different my perceptions are. I'm almost never on IM, regardless of whether Xtina is around, and these days I don't have anyone to IM-flirt with (*sniffle*). I hadn't made the "The person being visited stays online longer" connection; I think that has something to do with letting the guest take as much time as she likes--so usually the host will get offline very shortly after the guest says "I'm done"--but I'm not sure that's all of it.
I think we both have iTunes playlists for music the other one likes. There's not much overlap in our tastes, so those get a fairly serious workout when we're together.
In Xtina's house, the wireless network doesn't work in her room, so I tend to be out in the living room while she's online from her desktop in her bedroom. I'm always very conscious of that distance, and I always wish I could use my laptop to go online from her bed so that we can talk about what we're doing. We IM, but it's not the same.
I note that with both Xtina and my husband, sitting around reading books together is also a favored form of shared inactivity.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-31 11:18 am (UTC)Oh, you're on ever, which nowadays is more than me. Lest you dispute this, I'd like to introduce Exhibit A, my dreams which include that horrid squawking sound your client makes. *grins*
(And the flirting bit was a guess, natch.)
[visited = longer on]
For me anyways, it's that I'm more comfortable on my home computer than elsewhere. So it could entirely be "When I visit you, I'm at loose ends, and I'm not when I'm at home, wrt the internet", and I'm actually more addicted than you.
Dammit, I will NOT start doing science on this!!
I note that with both Xtina and my husband, sitting around reading books together is also a favored form of shared inactivity.
And with me and the aforementioned boyfriend. Many an hour spent on the back porch, reading and recommending books...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-30 05:30 pm (UTC)My last b/f was equally nerdy and I thought we were well matched, but he retreated to his office to a desktop instead of sharing that time with me, to my regret. Because our time together was limited, it seemed like a lost opportunity for closeness. I don't think it was about porn; he's a super-focused mathematician and just checks out.
Ultimately, I think the internet is a problem if one half of the couple is needy, lacks curiosity, and has less going on in their brain/life. But that's a problem off-line too, isn't it? I can't imagine being with someone I couldn't share my online world with, at least where our interests over-lapped.
I like emailing a lover. Like a previous poster, I think it has a playful and poetic quality when things are good, and a clear and intimate quality when things are not so good. I doesn't replace f2f but can reinforce communication by creating another channel for sorting out awkward or difficult problems.