communication is not connection

Communication ≠ Connection

One of the great mysteries of our time—besides the reason why the United States is still in Iraq after seven years, the magical thinking that enabled banks around the world to sell bad debts as good investments, and perhaps we can add here the enduring significance of Jeff Koons—is how the ever-expanding methods by which we communicate with one another—from cell phones to SMS, from e-mail to Twitter, from Facebook to Chatroulette—are alienating us from others and ourselves. (...)

But having more social contacts has not made for stronger social bonds. All the texting and friending may expand the number of people in one’s life, but the links do not enrich the quality of the arrangements. Common interests bring people together. But what keeps them together is neither common nor easy. It takes an evolving awareness of the differences that naturally develop between two individuals, and a commitment to allow those differences to take root, so that common connections grow into singular bonds. The open secret to this process is time, the only dimension capable of registering the moments and ruptures that define the growth of an individual abiding an unbridgeable difference to become one for the other.

zie: Paul Chan
The Unthinkable Community

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/144