Internet Communication
In today’s modern world, we are constantly looking for better and easier ways to do just about everything. We build cars that give you directions, irons that shut themselves off, and even televisions that record programs they think you’d like. Yet amid these constantly bigger and better mousetraps, there’s one modern advancement that goes largely unexamined: the instant message. In our fervor to improve just about every aspect of the human experience, we’ve now tried to invent a better way for people to communicate and interact. But have we succeeded? Is the increasing popularity of the internet conversation a testament to society’s progress? Or has our enthusiasm for technology obscured the fact that not everything can be improved with a modem and a microchip? As in any debate, I suspect the answer lies somewhere between the extremes, but it seems to me that this trend of internet interaction may not be as progressive as we all seem to believe.
Examples of this new internet culture seem to pop up everywhere. Students text message their problems to their friends, girlfriends IM all night to their boyfriends, and new acquaintances may even exchange screen names before phone numbers. We’ve become used to this medium. We expect it. College students will type away to a classmate down the hall rather than visit face to face. But what is so appealing about this pseudo-conversation that makes it preferable to actual speech? I submit that responding in brief, well thought out snippets of conversation feels safer than risking a full fledged dialogue. There’s no emotional investment on the Internet, no fear of rejection. No one feels too ugly or fat or awkward to talk to anybody else. No one is too shy to get the first word out or can’t think of something to say. Most importantly, nobody blurts out anything or embarrasses themselves. We create a community of confidence where everything we say can be considered, rewritten, edited, and improved before we hit “send.”
This type of cyber-small talk essentially makes Casanovas of even the most socially inept computer user. The key is that these so called “instant messages” are really anything but instant. The medium forgives and even expects long pauses and gaps in communication. No one knows if you’re racking your brain for a witty response, or just getting up to use the bathroom. In short, internet communication allows us time to construct the perfect repartee. It’s easy to be funny when you have time to revise the perfect joke. It’s easy to seem smart when you can look up words, browse current events, and preview cultural venues with the click of a mouse. Have nothing in common? You’ve got the World Wide Web. Most importantly, it’s easy to be daring when you have complete anonymity. Why not take a chance, be forward, be risqué? At the very worst you close one window and open another; pun intended. All of our insecurities fade away as we project ourselves into cyberspace as whatever and whoever we want to be.
Is it any surprise then that we find so many wonderful, charming, intelligent people online? They have the same luxury of creating funny, sexy, confident alter egos as you do. So if the fake-you doesn’t like the fake-them, one or both of you can just “edit your profile.”
Given all the potential for positive interaction online, what could the downside possibly be? After all, isn’t it better that we can all boldly converse with confidence, leave our inhibitions at the sign-on screen and just enjoy the best that can come from our minds? Shouldn’t we embrace a forum to look past physicality long enough to get to know someone on an emotional level? In theory it sounds utopian: a technological solution to insecurity and superficiality. However in reality, I fear we pay a price for our idealized community. Perhaps this inflated sense of confidence and perfection, which is the very root of the chat-room’s appeal, keeps us from ever really knowing anyone. If everything is filtered and careful and presentational, do we ever get to know the real person at the keyboard? Humans learn so much from participating in direct discourse, but instant messages deny us all of the subtle nonverbal cues. We don’t see the unconscious body language or get to read someone’s eyes. We can’t see what makes them blush, or cry, or even smile. The entire spectrum of human emotion is watered down and confined to a handful of punctuation faces and arbitrary acronyms. Think about it. How often have you typed the infamous “lol?” How many times did you actually laugh out loud? Those three letters make up perhaps the most recognizable addition to our modern vocabulary and yet they are ultimately meaningless. We’ve somehow tried to encompass every degree of amusement– from rolling our eyes to holding our sides– into three insincere letters. There in lies the problem. Most of us are guarded enough in real life without having to further hide behind glib cyber-clichés. Instant messages promise intimate interaction but in reality, conversation without self-revelation can never deliver that.
At this point, any devout keyboard conversationalist will no doubt interject that they in fact are able to rise above these limitations—that they have managed to open up and truly get to know their internet “buddies” on a deep, personal level. And it’s true that many internet users have sincerely sought to form relationships beyond the boundaries of the emoticon. However I’m not suggesting that the defect in the instant message stems only from the unwillingness of the speaker. Rather, the imperfections of the medium itself limit conversations, even among close friends. No matter how candid we hope to be, our ability to express ourselves is inevitably limited, even down to how many letters we may type. Our most heart-wrenching and heart-warming emotions must be confined and censored down to a summary shorter than this paragraph. On top of that, truly sincere dialogue is inescapably crippled by the option to delete and revise our responses. Live discourse, even a telephone call, allows us to gauge if someone is uncomfortable or angry, flustered or giddy, or even lying. But on the computer, every message is calculated and concise. And no matter how closely you may feel you know “SurfGrl826,” you can never surpass or even match the level of intimacy possible with live conversation.
All of this may seem like an overly severe condemnation of the instant message. After all, I’ve stood on my proverbial soap box and pointed my fingers and denounced my demons. But I’m not suggesting we cut the Internet out of our daily lives. I’m not calling for a reversion to the old days or some Kaczynskian techno-revolution. I am however, suggesting that we reexamine our interpersonal relationships and the bad habits that have crept into them. When you want some light banter while sitting in your bathrobe, by all means log on. Type away to whoever may be out there and enjoy it for what it is. But realize that although we enjoy the comforting sound of the IM beep, we can’t entirely replace the chat with the chat-room. It’s a false sense of intimacy, a golden calf. Though our need for interaction is seemingly fulfilled by our lol’s and brb’s, it’s important to consider that we don’t and can’t really know someone until we turn off the monitor and pick up the phone. Until we’re willing to escape our comfort zone and face the time honored, totally scary, emotionally vulnerable, might-not-work-out type of conversation, I wonder if most of our “buddies” will prove nothing more than shadows on the cave wall. And if our most cherished conversations and fondest memories canal be copied and pasted, I wonder if we can really consider this modern convenience progress.