by: Loong Kwok, Psy.D.

My first words as the new Editor-in-Chief of Impulse are surprisingly difficult to write. I believe it's because these words are how you will get to know me. Years of experience have given me some comfort with an asymmetrical relationship, but addressing an unseen and unknown audience is its own special situation.

As a reaction, I began to consider the state of modern communication. The virtue of technology is that it allows me to have a relationship with people who are not present. It holds the promise of never being apart and, thus, never losing touch. Yet the very ease with which we can keep track of each other creates a flood of information that can be overwhelming. There is also the concern that the distraction of always being "online" interrupts the relationships we have in real life.

This is part of a greater concern that technology is advancing too quickly. As our tools become more advanced, we must make more and more decisions about how we use them. I have often found myself looking up while spending time with friends and family to find that everyone is looking at their phone. To refrain from reifying my own thoughts, I would have said that this techno-wariness is my concern, but truthfully it's not. I'm excited about the ways in which we can talk to each other these days.

I believe that people are still motivated by relationships, but it is also very easy to keep to the relationships that are most familiar to us. Impulse serves as a venue, where all of us who are interested in psychoanalytic thought can let each other know what we're up to. In this way, I think it serves an important purpose in creating a greater community for all of us to be a part of.

To those of you who are actually reading this, I am looking forward to meeting you at one of these upcoming events.

Loong Kwok, Psy.D.
Impulse Editor-in-Chief