0 0 0 0 9 0 0 6B WednesdayMarch14, 2012 // The Statement Alone,together How Gchat can (dis)connect By Jacob Axelrad Friend: are you busy after 8 tonight? Me:I can't do it today I'm like doing some stuff And by that I mean reading and sleeping Friend:HAHAHAH it'll just take like 45 minIcan meet you infishbowl even plzzzzzzzzzzzzz we need to get this taken care of Me: Sleep is a thing humans have to do once every four days I'm duefor my sleep Let's talk about how we talk. Or, rather, how we "chat" here at the Uni- versity, an environment where things are easily pushed to the periphery - class melds with work which melds with the party you attended last weekend in a series of conver- sational tidbits. How do you gather the pieces, strike a balance? Maybe it's right there, in the same place you go while procrastinating on that paper, surfing the web in lecture or killing time at work: Gchat. Constantly plugged in You sign in to Gmail to check an e-mail from a professor. All of a sudden, your friend sends you a message: Friend:I MISS YOU! Just like that, you've inserted yourself into the Angell Hall of the Internet, the green dot next to your name in the lower left corner of your Gchat page signaling your availability to speak. You've opened yourself up to con- versation. Me: I MISS YOU TOO sorry i couldn't go to detroit this weekend i heard you saw emily Friend: no worries! come another time!! yeah she came saturday Me: i want to see you! Friend:Back atya!! At times, it feels like half our lives are spent sending e-mails for classes, for jobs or for internships. Gehat prolongs that cor- respondence into an endless stream of con- versation, supplying the potential to talk to whomever, whenever, about whatever. Most of the conversations are unremark- able - throwaway. They're about what you want to eat for dinner and why you still haven't started that Anthro paper. But Gehatting also provides the arena for intimacy, a place where one's deepest revela- tions of love and loss are exposed in the com- fort of one's own home. "You can Gchat in bed," Elizabeth Gum- port, a senior editor of the literary magazine n+1, said. Friend:Hey how was your date last week? Me: Um it was okay Friend:Just okay? Me: The conversation was kind of one sided. Not a lot of chemistry But who knows really? It's probably too early to tell Gchat fosters new relationships and sus- tains existing ones. University alum Jeffrey Domsic did not talk to his long-distance girl- friend from Denver on the phone. He chat- ted with her instead. For the three years he was in Ann Arbor up until his graduation from the University last year, the burden of never seeing her was eased by Google Chat. "Without social media, I don't think (the relationship) would have worked," Domsic said. "Without being able to stay in touch as much as social media allows us to, it wouldn't work. We don't have the personalities to be able to handle it." The "salon" In her article "Chathexis," which was published in n+l last August, Gumport likens Gehat to a 21st century French salon - tradi- tionally comfortable, informal gatherings of intellectuals during the Enlightenment. "The best Gehat conversations take place, like those of the salon, with one or both participants in repose, stretched out on a couch or in bed. Tucked beneath our covers, laptops propped on our knees - is this not the posture most conducive to meaningful Gchatting?" Gumport writes in the article. In an interview, Gumport described Gchat as a means to bring people together online in a way that's reminiscent of more personal relationships. On Gehat, the conversations are one-on- one. They are leisurely. No one wears a title, just a name. The participants are on an equal playing field. "There's this sense of equality and possi- bility to me that seems kind of unique,"Gum- port said. And late at night, Gchat returns philoso- phy to the bedroom - the pallid glow of the laptop screen becoming romantic and mys- terious. "Which perhaps is why so many of us feel our best selves in Gchat," Gumport writes. "Silent, we are unable to talk over our friends, and so we become better and deeper listen- ers, as well as better speakers - or writers . We have time to express ourselves precisely, without breaking the rhythm." Hoarding the past We can return to these conversations, the evidence of the day you were craving Thai food archived in a neat tab on your browser. Gumport's second idea is the theory of Gchat as a secretaire, a locked 17th century writing desk used by women to store letters. The secretaires served as private reposito- ries of correspondence, proof that the dia- logues between individuals existed. But in order to access these conversations, the secretaire requires a password, a secret key. Gchat operates in much the same way - the passwords acting as key grooves inserted into a lock; a quick search of your conversa- tion partner's name retrieving entire dia- logues from your inbox. In a sense, we are hoarders of the ephemeral. But what happens when the data exceeds the storage capacity, when we can no longer return to those conversations with friends we've come to rely upon? What happens when Google employs the first major use of the delete key? As School of Information Prof. Paul Con- way says, you can only hold onto the past for so long. Sooner or later, something must give. Citing a study carried out by the market intelligence firm International Data Corpo- ration, "The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe," Conway explained that the model of "saving everything forever" is unsustain- able. 2007, the year the study was performed, was the first year in recorded history where the total amount of digital informa- tion exceeded the digital storage capacity, according to the study. And almost half of the digital universe was projected to be inca- pable of being adequately stored by 2011. In a follow-up study in 2011, IDC reported that the world would create 1.8 zettabytes of information. The study also says the amount of personal data that gets stored, like the kind generated on PCs and MacBooks, "exceeded all expec- tations in 2007." In essence, consumers are just beginning to understand the need to preserve information when it may already be too late. Conway believes this phenomenon will soon affect users of social media such as Gehat and Facebook. "Its kin d of like being under house arrest. What could happen outside of Gchat? Kind of nothing, right? Because all your friends are there, your work is there, there's nothing out- side. And that's sort of the sour side of it." -Elizabeth Gumport, n+ 1 senior editor "We've passed the point at which digital information that's created exceeds the abil- ity to store it," he said. "We're getting to a point where a decision has to be made about what gets stored and what doesn't. And then the question becomes 'Well, who makes that decision? And under what circumstances?"' In a manner similar to the practice of accessing old banking records, in the next few years you may be required to put in a request to access old photos and online con- versations. This means childhood memories won't necessarily be stashed underneath your bed at home, Conway said. They may very well be locked away in a database. "You write your mother for fifth grade, but you write Mark Zuckerberg for 2004," he said. "He's got it. It's over there in a folder. He'll send it to you if you want to see your (Facebook) posts from college. "You'll get them. But you're going to have to ask. And worse, you're going to have to pay." The external self But is this necessarily a bad thing? When faced with the choice between keeping every Gehat conversation and wall post in your See GCHAT, Page 7B Wedneday, 012 - - en- 3 tweets of the week #PeytonManning Tim Kelleher m Lebron James announced that he will have a special on E spn to announce Peyton Manning's decision. 12 ' Eric Stangel To honor Peyton Manning, at Starbucks this morning I walked to the line and changed my drink order 6 times fjMarch Joel McHale It's official: Peyton Manning signs with #Community for #sixseasonsandamovie 13vMarch AB aldw Peyton coming to NY the moment after he captures Kony.... 8 March a week of daily stories learning about pride week [status update] by jordan rochelson Tell me about the rally on the Diag that happened last Monday for Pride Week. it's on annual event just to kind of bring excitement to the campus community and be a visible presence as LGBT students on campus. Do you feel like you have the student body's support? Last year, with the whole Chris Armstrong debacle, it definitely felt like the student body was behind us, but a lot of times that support isn't necessarily visible. Are people on campus aware of LGBT issues? In Ann Arbor, we like to think of ourselves as like "Oh Michigan, a really liberal campus." But that doesn't mean that things don't happen. If you were running for president, what would your slogan be? Community First. TH E ruleS The Michigan men's basketball team received an invitation to the NCAA tourna- ment Sunday. Their first game will be against Ohio Friday night in Nashville. ADAM GLANZMAN/Daily Last Thursday, Bothaina Kamel, an Egyp- tian presidential candidate, visited campus. Kamel focused her address on female equal- ity and activism. Andrea Vaught Historian of LGBT Commission, CSG No. 398: College students know more about the history of St. Fratty's Day than St. Patty's Day. No. 399: The Holy Grail is easier to find than a paid summer internship. No. 400: The kid writing on a" tablet with a stylus will most certainly make more money than you one day. ERIN KIRKLAND/Daily The Michigan hockey team swept a two- game series with Notre Dame to earn a trip to the ccHA semifinals at Joe Louis Arena. SHEI Magazine held a fashion show at Sava's State Street cafe last Saturday. The event raised over $1,500 for the Women's Center for Southeastern Michigan.