Ok, so there are a pile of distance awareness apps out there, from Scott Brave, et. al.'s In Touch to Jackie Lee and Hyemin Chung's Lovers' Cups.
The trouble I see is that the synchronous nature of this awareness means that most of the time the other person isn't there. Instead of being a means of feeling connected, it's a means of reinforcing disconnectedness. Imagine having a light that would go on whenever a friend thought of you - I imagine it would be on disappointingly little, and you would go crazy staring at the light, waiting to catch the moment that it blinked on and off.
In contrast, consider a greeting card (the physical, paper thing). The sender needs only think of the recipient only for a short time, and the recipient can bask in that thought for a long time. The recipient says 'what a lovely thought' rather than 'why aren't you thinking of me literally every moment?'
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This is one of the reasons I prefer email to instant messages or even phone calls. I find it hard to sync up with people and if I wait around until we are both free then it will never happen.
Then again, for those who are always connected, and I'm thinking of "kids" now, there is no need to wait until they can sync up. They are always in contact and updating each other. Also if you are in school you are seeing these people all the time so the short comm bursts make more sense in this framework.
I suspect that when these, lets call them sidekickers, kids hit the work force they may create similar communities at work expecting to always be in contact with those around them. This may scare a lot of companies but would likely help a lot with internal communication.
Well back to what you may have been actually talking about, seeing folks online in say IM actually is comforting, but like you say, only when they are there. I find when I go into gmail (with built in IM app) and there are only a couple people online I think "oh i'm sad". Okay it's not that dramatic but I still think "where is everyone?". It's the same feeling I would get when I would call friends as a kid and no one was home or available to hang out.
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