As an older gentleman, I have lived in three coffeehouse cultures; the physical, the virtual, and now where the virtual and the real meet.
I will take the first over any. I watch people in coffeehouses today, young and old. All the human interaction is gone. People;le will still chat with the friends they know over the internet while ignoring everything around them.
And now with digital books and laptops I can no longer see what book someone is reading and ask them about their insights. Everyone is in work mode 24/7 as well.
The internet was a commodification of the social aspect of the coffeehouse and it has done what commodification has always done; it ruins the experience, it cheapens it and reduces it to a bland common denominator where everyone has to be nice and the same 24/7 or you can never go back.
In my community we have a housing complex that if solely for people with serious mood disorders like schizophrenia. These people would also frequent the coffeeshops and interact act with everyone else in various states of consciousness. If one spoke like they usually do in pretty much any forum on the internet they are ridiculed and usually banned. There is no humanity left in the virtual coffeehouse, no space for difference, it is all an attempt for people to have their own little authoritarian safe space.
Just stop trying to reinvent the coffeehouse and go outside to a real one and don't take out your phone or your laptop. Make spaces unsafe again!
In the 90's and early 00's, my hometown had a great coffeehouse community. I joined various computer clubs that met at them, a 2600 club, and learned a lot about software development and computers in general from some old school grognards. Those are some of the best memories I have in life. I go to coffeehouses now and everyone sits by themselves. Nobody seems to talk outside the small group they arrive with. I'm probably getting to the age where this kind of nostalgia starts, but I definitely miss the atmosphere and idea exchanges that went on in those places. I never would have guessed that those interactions would jump start my whole career and passion. To see them rise again as a community forum would be incredible if they could even only catch 20% of the energy they had even back then.
"Simultaneously alone and in company" is an accurate description. What may be added, are long hours coffeehouses in context of the emerging "Beisl" scene in Vienna in the 1980s. With the added traits of a nightly bar, the aligning media consumption (as in newspapers) was replaced by potential connectivity and the social scene became its own ultimate media. Maybe somewhat helped by libidinous ambitions, which in turn promoted the exchange of ideas. (An example would be "Café Alt Wien", a respectable coffeehouse by day, which would transform into an essential nightly point of exchange with regulars stopping by frequently on their tours, mixing with those who preferred to spend the evening there.)
I will take the first over any. I watch people in coffeehouses today, young and old. All the human interaction is gone. People;le will still chat with the friends they know over the internet while ignoring everything around them.
And now with digital books and laptops I can no longer see what book someone is reading and ask them about their insights. Everyone is in work mode 24/7 as well.
The internet was a commodification of the social aspect of the coffeehouse and it has done what commodification has always done; it ruins the experience, it cheapens it and reduces it to a bland common denominator where everyone has to be nice and the same 24/7 or you can never go back.
In my community we have a housing complex that if solely for people with serious mood disorders like schizophrenia. These people would also frequent the coffeeshops and interact act with everyone else in various states of consciousness. If one spoke like they usually do in pretty much any forum on the internet they are ridiculed and usually banned. There is no humanity left in the virtual coffeehouse, no space for difference, it is all an attempt for people to have their own little authoritarian safe space.
Just stop trying to reinvent the coffeehouse and go outside to a real one and don't take out your phone or your laptop. Make spaces unsafe again!