So now we have a problem. Who are all these people?

Every day you interact with people. Over the phone, on television, email, and in person. Ideas, thoughts, philosophes, and problems are everywhere. There is so much information, and so many people telling it to you that it becomes impossible to make sense of it all.

As Ashton Kutcher is so fond of depicting in his socially provocative show “Beauty and the Geek,” peoples views of social hierarchy are often ruled more by their perception than any actual physical limitations.

So what are our perceptions?

The truth is, that this is a very large topic…much larger than I want to cover here…but on the whole, perceptions of sexuality, intelligence, cultural upbringing, and religion all carry with them a certain amount of archetypal belief model that is easily passed between people.

Everyone knows what a Catholic is, or a black person, or a gay person, or a geek, or a Mormon. Some of these archetypes are considered social norm, while others are considered social fringe. These belief systems can change from culture to culture and people group to people group, but within any given society there tends to be a social norm that most people can agree on.

So now, with the death of tech, we’ve had a fundamental change in the fabric of this social norm. Where once the term geek symbolized a social dysfunction, post tech boom, the geek lifestyle, as shown by its rise in popular culture: movies, literature, and television, has become the social norm.

So how does that change our perceptions?

The term geek affectively becomes meaningless.

This is a bit of a misnomer, since our definition hasn’t fundamentally changed, but the scope of how it is viewed by the general population has. If the term only covered five people with distinguishing characteristics before, it now covers fifty with several other, less definable characteristics. Effectively, we’ve watered down the terminology to fit a larger group of people.

So what does this mean?

People have become more aware of their environment and the people around them. Though with a less defined view of those they encounter on a daily basis. It makes the question, “Who are these people?” more difficult to answer, since the basis of our conclusions has taken on a more abstract context. In simplest terms, just because someone wears glasses doesn’t mean that he or she is a nerd… However, cause and effect relationships have become more important as our context broadens, since without our standard definitions to fall back on, people are forced to deal with their current situation as opposed to relying on preconceived notions. For instance, if I hurt someone physically or emotionally, how does that affect them? How does that effect me in return?

So what is the ultimate result of this shift in the world view?

Social affectedness.