It is not news that some supermarkets offer clients a chance to get the dates in the Department of production without ever touching a piece of fruit, but a new point of sale in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., takes things to another level.
The local Wegmans, part of a chain store 76 based in Rochester, New York, offers a comfortable restaurant, hosts live music and is come to be known as the "wegmans Club", The Washington Post reported recently. "Men meet [a woman] anywhere." Especially when you don't have to spend money, "a shopper was told the newspaper."(1)
I suppose that people who are concerned that we are all the hermits becoming as we sit in front of our monitors computer and televisions will take comfort in knowing that, since we all must eat and most of us want to to find matesWe can always kill the proverbial two birds with one stone.
Starbucks is a well-known example of this phenomenon. Its rapid increase of the company is most often attributed to his status as a neutral meeting that place for coffee of superior quality. But the Starbucks position even on the social scene is not entirely secure. A coffee shop full of people on laptops and smartphones can easily cause the elegy, "these people are not my friends, but a way to miss their presence".
There are many people who deplore the iPods and headphones Bluetooth as devices that wrap us in cocoons, discouraging significant link to in person. From this point of view, we are reduced to flirt in the aisle of the frozen food because no other place remains. One of the most famous essays on the subject, "Bowling alone Robert putnam", cited the Internet as one of the many factors which could increase our personal isolation. The test, published in 1995, has been expanded in a popular book in 2000. Title of Putnam became a shortcut generalized to discuss withdrawal large-scale civic and community life.
But while Internet increased rapidly when Putnam was wrote Bowling Alone, the tools that we now know as "social networking" did not yet exist. The Internet of 2000 was no Facebook, no MySpace, no Twitter, no LinkedIn. There were listservs and bulletin boards, e-mail and instant messaging, but in the field of communication between groups of people, who has just about everything.
The identified problem Putnam contained the seeds of its own solution. Humans are social animals. We are wired to communicate and connect with one another. If a new technology gets our willingness to share everything that is on our mind, we find a way to adapt to our social needs.
Rather than cut us off from each other, the Internet has brought together us in small and medium which are too numerous to. When I was into my adult, computers were working tools. Now, our smart phones to our e-book readers, tablets and laptops, computers have become tools for life.
Here is an example. My cousins are scattered over the country. I have parents, that I had not seen for many years because we have fallen out of touch, will be the way people often live far apart.
A few months ago one of my cousins has started a Facebook group, and joined a number of us. This has not prevented with ease online conversations or some shared images. Recently, I brought my mother to Florida for a visit, and through the group, a cousin of Georgia has been seen that we would be there at the same time. Quickly, we have made arrangements to meet for dinner. It was the first time since the 1970s that my mother had the chance to sit down with this parent.
Sites such as Facebook are leaving my generation find people that we lost time through changes of employment, long-distance moves or simply divergence. For the younger crowd, it helps to avoid losing track of people in the first place. I would say that my children maintain their youthful friendships much better that I have done, in part by better tools of their generation.
Instant communications have also fundamentally changed the experience of the war. A recent New York Times article details how to instantly connect soldiers overseas with their loved ones through instant messaging, Skype, and a variety of social media that bring them closer to us than the previous soldiers could dream of.(2) Without a doubt, there are disadvantages to the way in which technology cables to those soldiers that they leave behind, but the possibility of a mother serving in Afghanistan to see live video of his 2-year-old son should not be excluded, either.
Beyond simply keeping to family and close friends, however, Internet facilitates new real connections as well. Dawn Foster blogger recommends with enthusiasm with new media to keep in touch with new knowledge of the conferences, or maintaining friendships in part to keep a pool of qualified handy for recruitment online. Foster is quick to point out that the use of LinkedIn or Twitter only for mercenaries is the two bad karma and unlikely to work. like traditional friendship, it will become clear if you try to use people. But Internet reduces the distance and allows means fast and convenient to keep a fluid of concessions, if both parties are willing.
But we will return to love and relationships. Computers, after all, have been undertaken and tools military for as long as there were computers. If the Wegmans Club represents a dimension of the singles modern scene, online opportunities, ranging from simple interactions Facebook matchmaking services, represent another.
The stigma of a partner in meeting its online fades as the reason for dating online earnings. Sites like eHarmony and Match.com offer an evolution of the old personal ad. Romantic hopes can share all whether if they smoke to their views before deciding to try a first date religious or not. It is not just twenty willing to give a test to these services. In fact, according to CNBC, 50 to 60 years are the fastest population growth on Match.com.
Whether soldiers with foreign or cellular phones, exchange numbers in the aisle of the bakery, persons is addressed to the other any way that they find useful. Finally, the virtual life is always just - life. Which will not change if the early.
Sources:
(1) The Washington Post: the new Prince George Wegmans, becoming a Social hot spot
(2) The New York Times: stay in touch with the home, for better or for worse
You can go here to learn the secrets on online dating!
