We're all in this together

I love technology. I love the Internet. I love my lap top. I love mobile phones. I love my iPod. I love electricity. (This last one I shouldn't really say out loud given how most electricity is generated the world over, it's terribly 'unleft' of me).

I especially love these things today because even though I've not left my apartment (thank you recurrent Bangla belly for at least being mild this time) here is what I have done:

* confirmed my flights to Egypt, Turkey and the UK for later this year
* applied for a new passport
* wished my brother safe travels for his flight from Barcelona to Paris this morning, and then discussed the luxury of treating himself to a pair of sunnies from the Louis Vuitton store in Paris this afternoon
* planned, gossiped and joked with my sister
* spoke to my parents
* consoled a friend who had a big one and behaved a little badly last night
* heard from friends in London, Sydney, Brisbane and Bangladesh
* found out about the eradication of smallpox from Larry Brilliant and the future for dealing with pandemics "we [now] live in each others viral environments" (2007, about animals and humans); and Richard Dawkins' view on atheism "we are all atheists about most of the Gods humanity has believed in, some of us just go one God further" (2002)
* listened to The Beatles, Radiohead, Patti Smith, The Pixies, Placebo, and Badly Drawn Boy, and
* watched a Belgian arthouse flick, Le's Enfantes

To do all this I used a mobile phone and a laptop connected to the internet with a SIM card in (another) mobile phone using a data cable with my laptop giving me access to: iTunes, vodcasts and podcasts, skype, a dvd player and facebook, among other things, which made all this possible.

The revolution of communication technologies is incredibly exciting to experience on a professional level for someone who works in communications - especially the drop in costs of communicating globally, and the way that people the world over can collectivise (oohh, sounds scarily communist doesn't it - it's not, I promise) over issues despite not knowing each other from a bar of soap, and being geographically disparate. A perfect example is the current activity on twitter following the Iran election.

Personally, however, it's even better. Communication technology has effectively bridged the gap of living alone in a foreign country, and has made me feel completely connected and part of it all.

While all these electricity-hungry gadgets don't bode well for climate change, I'm eager to see where we go next. Between e mail, text messages, skype, blogs, social networking sites like facebook* and twitter, I know my world has changed for the better. And it looks like I'm not the only one.

*yes, I still think facebook could be better termed stalkerbook, which I guess means I'm a stalker, but I prefer to think that getting good at using this stuff is more preferable to not using it at all. What did Shakespeare say - 'there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'?