Evolution of Ambience

Clive Thompson portrays the evolution of social ambiance throughout his article, Web Ushers in Age of Ambient Intimacy. It's interesting because the article is basically a documentation fueled by personal testimonials and reactions of the people who've been a part of things like Facebook and Twitter since the beginning of the two mediums. Thompson moves things forward chronologically and does so documenting the many changes and effects that have taken place on these sites. I even found myself thinking of the many different emotions and views I had when facebook so suddenly changed it's workings with a news feed. This was a revolution of sorts that led to the unimaginable amount of information we now have access to about our "friends" on facebook and it doesn't matter if we want the information or not...it's just there.

One paragraph in Thompson's writing I want to make a note of came on the third page, second paragraph.

"Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting."

All the information, even in it's one liners are nothing more than pieces to the puzzle, which eventually make up your opinion and identity of those you identify with and even those you don't.