Unbegrenzte Verfügbarkeit

Abstract

In the ongoing reflection about effects of the new means of electronic communication on our social behavior and our individual psychic well-being, the sheer (and in itself banal) aspect of quality is often overlooked. It remains true, nevertheless, that the sharp increase in the number of communicative events and exchanges that we engage in per day has changed some basic structures of our everyday forever. In the first place, constant communication via cellphone (and other related devices) has made us omnipresent/ ubiquitous–at the price of never being physically where we are with our mind’s attention and perception. This new mobility may have changed our relation to the material world forever. At the same time (and even more astonishingly), electronic communication has not only accelerated the pace of our exchanges; the informal and yet strong obligation to always answer immediately has given the status of ›availability‹ the aura of a quasi- ›ethical‹ norm. Making us unconditionally available at every moment is a subtle way of self-enslavement. But this reaction may just be the complaint of someone who has now lived ›beyond‹ the technology of his birth years, and who has been put into an existential ›offside‹ by the subsequent technologies.