Online presence
Posted by pricklykina on May 29, 2008
I was reading Protoruru’s posting on presence and not knowing what one’s identity is on-line and thought, heck I’ve been spending so much time on-line lately it’s hard to know what my identity is offline.
I ran group tonight and had the experience of feeling pressure from a group member to fulfill a need and this affirmed for me how we can experience similar issues on-line as off. The great part of on-line work is that extra breathing space. The chance to say to a co-facilitator “shit, I don’t know where I’m going here”
But is that pause OK?
In f2f groups there is no pause ( saying that in solution focus therapy they have a whole reflecting team and part of the session is dedicated to pondering) .
Tonight I felt like it was a cop out. That’s about my continued process of getting used to this way of working. Actually it’s OK to reflect, people will come alone for a mo. But then is it a mixing of communication timing…can we handle synchronous and asynchronous in the same group?
pareidoliac said
There is a lot to be said for pauses and space. Actual territories tend to be overcoded by particular strains of meanings but these also breed alternative lines of territorialization. It is a battle in a sense that meanings are at stake. Virtual territories provide less overcoded spaces that allow for novel possibilities which may be reincorporated into ‘RL’. Its very much a matter of mixing… reality jockeying through spacetimes.