Some vague and incoherent thoughts
Sort of generated by/riffing off a conversation between a couple of colleagues this morning, the general and recurrent WOEZing about the deleterious impact of the internet on our lives, and having people with whom my connection is solely in the professional sphere doing the cheek-kissy thing.
I am hesitant to suggest that there is any actual connection between people living their lives online and what seems to me (yes, moi, wot lived through the 60s) an increasing level of touchy-feely (cheek-kissy-kissy, hugs) in the real life social world.
I am not against hugs, but I feel that there are people who are in my hug-zone and people who are not, or not yet. While a person may be a nice person, if our main connection is online and we have been in the same room twice, both on academically-related occasions, I am not sure I am ready for the embrace-as-greeting.
Call me a stuffy old dodo, but I don't think cheek-kissing is appropriate in the context of archive negotiations, from intending donor to intended archivist*.
Is this because people feel they have to overcome the anomie of living their lives online, and overcompensating by bringing the flesh into rl encounters?
Is it to do with the way email conversations segue from the initial business-formal of Dear [title] [surname] to first names, to one-line or even one word responses confirming meetings?
Is it all about the erosion of the public/private spheres?
Or is it Just One Of Those Things that happens, and nothing has anything to do with anything else?
*Or am I becoming Katy Carr and her Society for the Suppression of Unladylike Conduct?
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