There's a notion called contact comfort that is used to express how we feel when we know our social network is or isn't easily accessible. When we feel very alone, our degree of contact comfort enters a danger zone - we feel angst and experience a drive to return to our contact comfort zone. For many, the presence of a working mobile phone with signal strength and text messaging enabled serves to keep us "in the zone". That's why when you can't find your phone, or your battery is dead you feel that bit of panic. You aren't in the zone anymore.
Today I realized Gmail is another communications device that keeps its users in the zone.
Anyone who communicates with me via email knows that I'm a gmail user and fan.
Gmail uses those delightful lights to communicate a status to others - green for I'm here and ready to chat, yield yellow for I've gone inactive, and red for not now please. If you need privacy, gmail offers an invisibility cloak too.
The most important people in my social network are on gmail and I can check their status anytime I'm online. Seeing their lights keeps me in my comfort zone. No light, no comfort.
What are your communication comfort "blankets"? What technological advances, tools, widgets, and gadgets keep you in the zone?
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