Here we are, closing in on the final days of the season. And as we all know, this year in particular seemed be one which embraced the idea of the “staycation.” Which is certainly a sad tale insofar as economic metrics are concerned. But did you find an upside to any of it? Did the possibilities provided by social networking do anything to satisfy the desire to venture beyond town, county, state, or national bounds?
Did you perhaps spend your vacation finally catching up with family that you remain distant from. Did you give grandparents, cousins, uncles or aunts a crash course in the ways of Skype and the video connections it provides - if they hadn’t learned already?
Or, do those conveniences not give you enough? Does microblogging and the idea of a neighborhood multiplayer Xbox Live marathon not quite do it for you?
So it is presumably the case that boredom with the status quo becomes less common. It’s almost like clockwork. It is expected that the proverbial high will continue. One can get nitpicky about personal likes and dislikes about what is deemed great and not so hot, but on the whole, there is rarely a time for rest. That goes as much for producers as for consumers. Thus I ask: does the so-called convergence of virtual and real, or the promise of it, with all the people power it now involves, something that brings an always-on or near-always-on level of interaction that sort of balances out our innate desire to, for lack of a better word, move?
To some that might seem an open-ended philosophical query, but it doesn’t need to be taken so heavily. It’s pretty simple, really. 2008 is the year. The Web and all it involves is moving along at a fairly brisk pace. So, have things become mainstream to the point that a so-called “staycation” isn’t just a vision of camping at a lakefront close to home or trying to channel Krakauer and the travels he documents, but is increasingly about tapping a network of similarly Web-savvy friends to make the most of what’s around? Do the options the Web now provides give you the user an increased level of satisfaction within 10, 15, 50, or 100 miles that that you would otherwise pass over or fail to consider?
(Image credit: Regeneration.org)