Project Anonymity. TechReal vs. RealReal

I watched this video yesterday afternoon while preparing for last night's 5376 class. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

The idea that we seek connection with strangers through blogs, forums, twitter is at once obvious and profound. We are alone, yet not. We reach out, but only from behind a computer screen. At times, we are more connected to the person we communicate with via our mobile phone's SMS than the people who live in our house, share space in our classroom, and walk beside us shoulder to shoulder.

Connecting this way allows us to share our true selves without percieved risk. Our devices divulge and protect us. We can be accepted for who we are without showing who we are in real time, face to face.

The connections we make anonymously become more real to us than the connections we make otherwise. This video gives me chills; it's scary and thrilling and confounding. What is it about Being online, faceless and true, that is so much easier than Being with the people we can see and touch? I'm certain there is a level of emotional safety in the distance of wires. And yet, when techreal becomes more real than realreal, can we not be wounded just the same by the faceless people we connect with through those wires?