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Cited by 574Cultural Studies and PostmodernismCybernetics and Technology in SocietyMedia and Communication Studies

The challenge of absent presence

Open access
Gergen, Kenneth J.·2002·Perpetual Contact
DOI 10.1017/cbo9780511489471.018
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Abstract

“Let your home know where your heart is.” (Billboard advertisement for cellular phone) The setting is a retirement home for the elderly. Wilfred enters the veranda in search of two close friends. He is in luck, they are both present. But alas, one is lost to her Walkman and the other is engrossed in his book. Neither notices Wilfred's presence. Frustrated, Wilfred is left to stare silently into space. Such is the beginning of Ronald Harwood's London play, Quartet . Young or old, we instantly identify with the scene. How often do we enter a room to find family, friends or colleagues absorbed by their computer screen, television, CDs, telephone, newspaper, or even a book? Perhaps they welcome us without hesitation; but sometimes there is a pause, accompanied even by a look of slight irritation. And at times our presence may go completely unacknowledged. We are present but simultaneously rendered absent; we have been erased by an absent presence. It is the twentieth-century expansion of absent presence that I wish to explore in what follows. My concern is with the growing domain of diverted or divided consciousness invited by communication technology, and most particularly the mobile telephone. One is physically present but is absorbed by a technologically mediated world of elsewhere. Typically it is a world of relationships, both active and vicarious, within which domains of meaning are being created or sustained.

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  • Cell phones strengthen users' connections to physical space, in opposition to current studies suggesting that cell phones withdraw users from the physical space in which they are.

    “the way cell phones strengthen users connections to physical space, a finding in opposition to current studies suggesting that cell phones withdraw users from the physical space in which they are (Gergen, 2002; Plant, 2001; Puro, 2002).”

    From From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces (2006) · cites this paper as Gergen, 2002

  • In the hybrid-spaces logic, cell phones do not take users out of physical space; conversely, they strengthen users' connections to the space they inhabit, because the connection to other users depends on their relative position in space.

    “In the hybrid-spaces logic, cell phones do not take users out of physical space, as has been suggested by many scholars who have studied mobile devices as voice communication technologies (Gergen, 2002; Plant, 2001; Puro, 2002). Conversely, they strengthen users' connections to the space they inhabit, because the connection to other users depends on their relative position in space.”

    From From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces (2006) · cites this paper as Gergen, 2002

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Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press; originally published in 1981.
  2. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (1996). "Technology and the Self: From the Essential to The Sublime." In D. Grodin and T. Lindlof (eds.), Constructing the Self in a Mediated Age. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 127-140. (2000). The Saturated Self, 2nd edn. New York: Perseus.
  3. Jones, S.G. (ed.) (1998). Cybersociety 2.0. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  4. Kiesler, S. (ed.) (1997). Culture of the Internet. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  5. Laclos, C. de (1940). Dangerous Acquaintances: Les liaisons dangereuses. Trans. E. Dawson. London: Nonesuch.
  6. MacIntyre, A. (1984). After Virtue, 2nd edn. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
  7. Miller, J.K., and Gergen, K.J. (1998). "Life on the Line: The Therapeutic Poten- tials of Computer Mediated Conversation." Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy 24: 189-202.
  8. Porter, D. (ed.) (1997). Internet Culture. New York: Routledge.
  9. Rheingold, H. (1994). The Virtual Community. London: Minerva. Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009 https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489471.018 Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Swarthmore College Library, on 28 Feb 2018 at 18:50:35, subject to the

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Authors
Gergen, K. J.
Affiliations
Swarthmore College (US)
Corresponding author
Gergen, Kenneth J.
ORCID
Gergen, Kenneth J.
Venue
Perpetual Contact
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Published
2002-03-21
Pages
227-241
DOI
10.1017/cbo9780511489471.018
OpenAlex
W1912036549
Cited by
574
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 30
FWCI
34.69
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 2742 d)
Locations
  • Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
  • Works - Scholarship, Research, & Creative Expression (Swarthmore College) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Cultural Studies and Postmodernism
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Cybernetics and Technology in Society
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Media and Communication Studies
Keywords
absent presence, divided consciousness, mobile devices, communication technology, quartets, distraction, presence and absence, 20th-century culture

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