Alone Together

By David Rubinstein

December 15, 2006 —

People are by their very nature social beings. We live in families, join clubs, and bond to form towns, counties, states and nations. We create norms of behavior, set moral standards. We gather at picnics, root for our favorite teams, take classes together, practice religion. In short, we get together.

I mention this because Microsoft recently released Zune, its first music player. It is like Apple’s iPod in many ways: It’s small, lightweight and can play music or video. But Microsoft’s marketing differentiates Zune by claiming it offers a social experience.

Music can be shared through the use of wireless technology built into the Zune player, creating what Microsoft chairman Bill Gates calls “connected entertainment.”

This is but the latest in social networking, or social computing. MySpace is arguably the best-known example now, as people of like interests create virtual meeting spaces to share stories, photos, music and video. Google, Yahoo and others also are launching into this space.

In our world of software development, we enable social computing through the use of collaboration tools, which join together developers working in remote locations around the world. Some tools go beyond source-code and issue-list sharing to enable real-time messaging, discussions lists and even video and audio conferencing.

However, the more technology advances in the ways it brings us together, the more it succeeds in keeping us apart.

People are at their most creative when they’re together. One idea sparks another, and suddenly there is a flash of inspiration, created by the combustion of thoughts and suggestions and revisions. The whole group is thus lifted by their collective contributions and accomplishments. In my world, I have found that writers and editors work best when one is looking over the shoulder of the other, striking a phrase here, replacing a word there, and then working through a troublesome passage with the joined vision and energy they bring to the work.

I’m sure this is true about software development as well. I can’t believe that a developer sitting in an office in California, with his iPod earpieces in place to shut himself off even more, can be inspired to greatness simply by exchanging instant messages or e-mails with a so-called collaborator across the country.

True, technology has given us the ability to work with people around the world more easily than ever before. But the types of work companies are outsourcing are low-level maintenance and testing projects. The creative stuff—software design and architecture, and the code to turn that vision into a reality—is being kept in-house.

Social networking is a fraud. There’s nothing social about it at all. I have a 13-year-old daughter who sits alone in front of her computer for more hours per day than I’d care to admit. It has become her social lifeline. I’ll ask her what her friends are doing, and she’ll say, “We’re hanging out on MySpace.” When I suggest she call them and actually, physically, get together in the same location, you would think by her reaction that I’ve just asked her to get on a rocket to Mars.

Perhaps I’m just old. Maybe, when my daughter’s generation comes of age, they will be so comfortable with the idea of social computing that they will be able to find creative inspiration at the urging of an instant message. Maybe they won’t need the energy created from a group of people looking into a computer screen, pointing at things and sharing ideas instantly, clearly, with some humor, or exasperation, or brilliance that’s so hard to pick up on via the written word.

I think the Knights of Columbus, the Jewish Community Centers and the Kiwanis Clubs will be the real beneficiaries of “social networking.” The same is true of the company lunchroom. That’s where people will fill their primal need to actually get together.

David Rubinstein is editor-in-chief of SD Times.

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