The effect of LJ...

... on our social life. Or the virtual one, anyway.

So, does LJ bring us closer to each other or does it alienate us even more? The answer is, in my opinion, yes and no, to both questions.

It's true that LJ has perhaps the best layout for organizing entries by topic and to find the ones we're intrested in. It's also a good forum to tell about the daily events of our life a great number of people simultaneously. Quite a time-saver, and time is a precious thing to us all. So, in this, LJ does, indeed, bring us closer to each other. We are up to date to the events of each other's life, we can - especially if we are members of the same LJ community - discuss topics more easily, than, say, on a Yahoo mailing list. The interactive factor is stronger.

But... I've just recently realized that practically everything that lands in my mailbox is an LJ-comment. Aside from organizing holiday plans with altariel1 and earonn or making photomanip agreements with the most generous archet, I haven't got a single private message for ages. Nor have I written many of those, to tell the truth. Some, but not many.

So, what's happening? Private contacts are practically nonexistent. And while there's the opportunity of friend-locked entries, one still can't be as open and as honest as in a private e-mail. There's always the danger that someone will misunderstand something, feel insulted and turn their backs on you, without the chance to clear the whole thing. It has happened to me, repeatedly.

It is almost as if we can't bring up the extra energy that the nurturing of personal contacts demands. Granted, we are all battered by Real Life (the bitch!) and happy when we find a way to deal with our contacts easier. But sometimes I have the impression that LJ makes it too easy for us. And while going for the easy solution, something deeper, more personal gets inevitably lost.

Sorry for the depressing content. But it seems to me that I've lost contact to too many friends I used to correspond with in the recent years. And not because of the lack of trying from my side. Perhaps I'm just looking for a scapegoat.

All that said, I'm still happy to be on LJ. It does make many things easier. I just don't know whether we should depend on it to this extent. Perhaps I'm wrong and seeing ghosts. But the corner of the Internet where I've been active since I got access for the first time seven or so years ago seems to be a lot less impersonal lately.

Elections, 2006

So, in case anyone is interested in the local political struggles, I've hunted down a few English articles for you.

First, a short summary of political system in Hungary on Wikipedia.

Secondly, some info about the election system, from the same source.

Google spat out a few analytical articles as well but they don't say anything interesting.

Oh, and by the way: I'm going to a language camp with 60-something kids of the nationality classes and four colleagues the day after tomorrow. It's a place without civilization (aka Internet), so I might be out of touch for a week, unless I manage to sneak home and log in for an hour or so twice during the week, which is the plan.

The Tolkien Quiz Game will start on edhellondawards on May 1 nevertheless.