This week, we begin our discussion of the mobile self. In our explorations, we consider the technologically mediated blurring of self and society, described by Kenneth Gergen as social saturation. Drawing from his work on the subject, we seek to understand how the cell phone, automobile, and personal computer make possible the "the splitting of the individual into a multiplicity if self-investments." Addressing this question, we consider components of the traditional face to face community, and how this taken-for-granted reality becomes challenged by what Gergen terms perseverance of the past and acceleration of the future. We then ask ourselves, what are the interpersonal and social implications of social saturation? Included in our investigations, we find that children are no longer isolated from adult worlds, we discover the emergence of "friendly lover" relationships, and we assess the potential of microwave relationships to replace traditional familial interaction.

Reading: Gergen's The Saturated Self (excerpt)