Eye on the I
Eye on the eye
Eye on the I will look at the reciprocal relationship between the web’s zeitgeist and new quality of life and personal wellness, from an Icentered point of view. Eye on the I will look at I centered aspects as part of personal wellness, quality of life, emerging life style trends applicable within and outside the web.
Technology, the web and life styles are shaping each other. There is a reciprocal feeding between the physical and virtual worlds. The web as our digital habitat is an extension of the physical world. Therefore our web interactions, content we consume, reflect to a great extent our life styles, values, preferences. The social web has a strong impact on many life aspects, connectivity takes new forms, and we as consumers get new power in our dialogs regarding products and providers. Awareness to the I is manifested in an intricate weaving of a quality of life that reflects directly on the quality of our web life as well. Quality of life translates to new values, new communications, going back to essences. Relevance and context become more acute in empowering that on the web.
The Icentered state of mind can be extended beyond the realm of the web, just as physical life finds manifestations in web interactions. Involvement in an Icentered mindset can create a sense of purpose and belonging as part of a movement aiming to create a better virtual web of life. The values of participation, sharing, and collaborative building become part of personal wellness.
Facilitation of life through simplification, decluttering find their natural translation in web life through the Icentered paradigm that can turn the web into a web of life, empowering a web experience that is personal adaptive , private and safe. It is part of taking active responsibility and shaping our environments so that they best suit the values we believe in.
The essence of the web’s zeitgeist as the focal point of Eye on the I, feeds from the following:
Web 2.0 has evolved way beyond technology to the web of the users. People turn from passive observers and recipients of many push based services into active participants that initiate, interact, express and influence. User based conversations rule the net. Our frame of reference and sources of influence are increasingly based on our peers and friends rather than on authority and marketing. Social media is of equal value and importance as main stream media and corporate content offerings, and a growing part of our life is spent online, we interact in growing areas of our life and are increasingly involved with our social spheres.
Social communities are thriving – People increasingly translate the need to belong and to interact with other people who share their interests or needs into the web, overcoming geographical and physical boundaries. Belonging and finding a sense of purpose binds people together in a way that matters. Social communities and social networks enable people to share. Increasingly people want to belong and be part of the online novel social networking scene, as a natural extension for basic social needs that exist in the real world.
People gain social capital on the web. What their virtual sphere is comprised of and how they act within it, takes many facets – pure networking, professional socializing, communities of interest, closed communities, open networks… all enable people to gain status, power and value by interacting, sharing, commenting, mentoring and influencing. What all these interactions lack is the dimension of mutual context with people who are in a users’ social sphere – to cut through the social communication glut, or expand the social sphere with other people who share your affinities and interest but you don’t know each other.
People willingly participate in endeavors that harness collective intelligence bottom-up to solve problems. Co-development through crowdsourcing and open code allow for more production, motivate people to express, contribute, share and be part of a communal effort for a mutual cause. This new culture of producing for free, voluntary co writing, stems from a sense of freedom where participation has a higher value than consumption.
