Connectivity Poems

   Email is when in mail the "snail" in front is replaced by an "e"
   and one audios can here and images see
   ... and instantly communicate with family and friends from oversea(s)12

Connectivity is one of the most interesting subjects of technological poetry because connectivity is also one of the major benefits of our entire technological network. So what do people use all this newfound connectivity for? Communication, of course! Is it really as good as the media likes to portray it? Well, perhaps...

The connectivity poems vary considerably in opinion, ranging from talk of isolation "We gave up knowing our immediate neighbors/For a vast impersional Internetwork." ¹³ through talk of living through that online connection, no matter how ridiculous this might seem:

            I'm way past my prime, and he's older yet, 
	    And we're falling in love on the internet. 
            How silly, how stupid, this just isn't done, 

(...)
            There's no holding hands, you just talk on the "net."14

Many people seem to have used the connectiveness to find people they would never have met... and now feel they could never have done without:"I met many people, through technology,/And finally found, a person like me." ¹⁵

                     We cultivate a strange friendship
                      A trust which spans a continent
                               Never meeting
              Connected only by the thin thread of technology.16

I had expected to find at least one poem talking about how easy it is to be fooled into trusting someone's online persona, but most of these poems were positive in that respect. However, there was one site which detailed a betrayl of trust quite notably:

ElectricHippie's
LOVERS CORNER

Welcome to my page.
(But guess what. It is not HIS page anymore.)
I have decided to take it over for reasons at hand.
CONSIDER THIS TO BE A RANSOM NOTE.
Do you THINK you know people? I mean, REALLY KNOW them? Well, it's not reality. They only show what they WANT you to see.
Soon you will be used and discarded, just thrown to the side as if you never exsisted. Ignored to the person's heart's content. You will be lied to.
That has happened to me. I thought I knew him. I mean, seriously knew him. I've "known" him via Net and OTHER, communicational, devices for 7 months. Wouldn't you think that you would probably know someone after that period in time, if you talked to that person everyday?