At Jennifer’s suggestion (thanks, Jennifer), I’ve added some ways for you to more easily track comments.
If you are interested in following comments on a specific post, click on that post title. At the bottom of the post is the comments box, and at the very bottom you’ll see a checkbox that offers to update you by email whenever anyone comments on that particular post. You don’t have to leave a comment yourself to activate this update feature — there’s room for lurkers too (grin).
If you want to add the comments feed to your feedreader (such as Bloglines), you’ll find a new Comments Feed icon on the navigation bar at the top of every page of the website. It’s the little right-hand orange icon. If you don’t know what a feedreader or feed aggregator is, then you probably don’t use one. Back slowly away from this paragraph and go on to the next one.
If you want to receive a daily email update of every new comment, no matter what post, you can sign up for an email subscription using the convenient box on the sidebar under the “Recent Comments” section (“Get all comments by email”). Or use this link. This update works exactly the same way as the email subscription to posts.
I hope this will make it easier for people to stay involved in conversations or topics that interest them.
Please let me know if you have any problems or questions!
I wonder at this technology sometimes. It is supposed to bring us together faster, easier, but I am not so certain we are connecting. There is so much we could learn but it seems as though we are brushing up against one another.
Here’s an experiment, Kelley. Next time you and Nicola go to the park, watch and see who is willing to make prolonged eye contact with you. I’ll bet you a Guinness it will be children and old people. So what’s going on with the rest of us? I don’t think it’s just naked people we are afraid of.
It’s true that there is less direct connection in the casual world than there once was. I’ve tried the eye contact thing before, and no bets (grin) — I already know how it plays out. I remember living in Chicago in the 80’s, walking in the Loop and having people smile and say hello as we passed each other. That doesn’t happen so much anymore in the cities, although it’s still the default behavior in my little neighborhood.
Maybe that’s what’s happening. Maybe we are becoming physically more local, smaller-focused, and saving our expansiveness for the virtual world, where it is just as easy to connect (or brush past) someone on the other side of the planet as someone in your own city. Easier, really, since you can connect to the other side of the world without leaving your desk.
Is it fear? Maybe. Certainly sometimes. But for me it can also be “people fatigue.” I do so much interacting in this online way, and the thing it, it takes energy. I take it seriously, and it feels real to me, and sometimes I leave my computer feeling the need to recharge in the same way I would if I were leaving a dinner or a party.
And so when I go to the park, I go to recharge, not to socialize. I don’t mind sharing the park with other folks, and I don’t mind smiling and meeting their gaze, but neither do I seek it out.
There are so many of us in the world now. We’re so crowded up against one another all the time. I think people fall upon internet technology with glee because it gives us all a little more space, a little more control over when and how we choose to interact.