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There exists a unique world within every screen. Only the viewer of the screen can be fully present in what that world is, how it is organized, what information it holds, and how it is being used.
The screen is entirely separate from its physical surroundings. The world inside the screen does not take place in physical space.
I have a relationship with my screens. Though they are not by default unique to me, I make them my own by inhabiting the space within the screen. It becomes full of my own information, my own contacts, my own photos, my own history. I project my physical life into the inanimate screen.
Actions I take on a screen can be about the real world – but they will always approximate the physical.
Virtual communication is not as fulfilling as face-to-face communication. It is good at accomplishing analytic tasks, but not personal projects.
Zoom is the mediated connection between two people. My experience of Zoom is the mediated experience of someone else in the physical world. I can see parts of them, I can hear them. But I am not existing in the same physical space, but only a representation of me is existing alongside (in virtual space) with a representation of them.
I cannot make eye contact with them. I do not know if their eyes or mind wander, if they are virtually present on Zoom or on are instead virtually present in some other window.
There is a virtual representation of my own self-conscious, staring back at me.
Four separate worlds are being experienced – my physical world, my virtual world, their virtual world, and their physical world. Each in that moment is unique. There is nothing being shared other than the mutual understanding that communication is occurring.
Even the two Zoom windows may not be identical. My face might be small on mine, their face large. On theirs it may be the opposite. I am also acutely aware of this fact – that my face might be huge on their screen. This might amplify my self-consciousness.
On social media you must create an account, to be your virtual self. That virtual self can be as similar or as different to you as you make it, with corresponding virtual and physical consequences to your decisions.
You are not encouraged to virtualize your entire physical self. Only what is deemed worthy of being made virtual.
Social media claims to be about human experience. But in truth it is about a subsection of human experience. Unlike a face to face interaction, social media exists outside of any physical bounds, allowing it to act as a curated representation of one’s favorite personal identifiers.
All virtualized action has the potential to affect the physical world, to cause physical events. A virtual action has the potential to act upon a physical object. However, it can never become a physical action itself.
The point is not that the virtual world exists independently from the physical world, but rather that the virtual is absolutely divided from the physical.