What hath Web 2.0 wrought?  I believe life was simpler before life on the web.  As our lives become more and more wired, there are more and more complexities to consider, and for which we need to plan.  Consider this: if something were to happen to me, my entire online presence would go with me into the Great Unknown.  So much of what I do to manage my family household, from our basic internet access, to online banking, bill payments, email accounts, knowledge of which important files are stored in which folders across multiple directories on the home server, would be lost.  What happens to this site?  This is a one person operation, so it would sit, untouched, in perpetuity.  What about the memberships at LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Blogger, Dreamwidth, Evernote, etc.?  How about the less important things like my subscriptions at Consumer Reports, New York Times, APS, AAA, eFax, etc.?

I was viewing a video on YouTube the other day, on a channel to which I subscribe, and began to wonder about the “relationships” we form online.  Some are completely one-sided, almost voyeuristic, while others operate in a group dynamic, but both can be with friends, family, people we kind of know, or people we don’t know at all.  For example, the YouTube video was posted by Tara Lauren aka lilpixiedust33.  I’d subscribed to her channel around three or so years ago while searching for Nichole Nordeman videos; she is very talented, and periodically posts videos playing guitar, piano and singing, sometimes solo and sometimes with a friend, and I check in every now and then.   I’ve learned a little about some music to which I would not have otherwise listened such as Colbie Caillat and Sara Bareilles, but Tara is a college student, a young woman who will surely someday, maybe soon, grow and move on to another place in her life where she no longer uploads her home music videos, she will be gone forever, and truth is I will miss her presence.  Similarly, there are blogs that I follow, such as Chris’ at serendipitous, but the joy I receive from reading her posts and viewing her photographs purely depends upon how much longer she wants to take the time and effort to write.  I started following Megan at LiveJournal (maybe 8 years ago, before the Sox won the 2004 World Series, for sure) while looking for some Joe Jackson stuff, back when she and her then boyfriend now husband were looking at apartments in Brooklyn – she’s now the mother of a 3 year old, posts very infrequently (she Tweets and Facebooks, but I don’t go there.)  I’ve certainly “known” her the longest, and thanks to her I use Dreamhost for my website hosting, but this “relationship” too is fleeting.

So, where do things go from here?  As we become more connected through various web sites, and stay connected by a proliferation of web enabled devices, to friends, family, celebrities, merchants, and total strangers, how will our real life relationships be affected?  Do we begin to mimic our online interactions in our day to day human relationships?  Conversely, do we risk deeper emotional involvement with online contacts, potentially putting our human relationships at lower priority?  I’m not sure that I like where this is all going, and what the future holds for my kids’ chances of maintaining meaningful relationships that are more than skin deep.