I’m sitting here tapping away at my iBook because my desktop that I’ve had for over three years now is having, how shall we say, difficulties.
It’s weird, five, ten years ago if this happened, it wouldn’t have been too big a deal to me. But now, I feel a loss, like something is gone. The past three years are on that machine. I feel like I’m not connected to anyone; away messages, LJ, Slashdot, the Intarweb, its missing!
Sometimes I wonder what the hell we are doing. Why do so many of us spend hours each day staring at a screen? Whatever happened to direct human contact? What did college students do with their time in the past that is now taken up by checking websites, instant messaging and filling out dumb polls online? It seems as though we are extremely interconnected electronically, yet some substanstial, important aspect of our humanity is missing.
My friend Heather who went to RIT a few years ago told me once that the Dining Commons is much emptier now of deaf/hard-of-hearing students compared to 5 or more years ago. She attributed it to the rise of text pagers like the Sidekick and instant messaging. Now everyone can talk to one another without leaving their room. But is this better? Is the quality of electronic communication as good as face to face interaction? I think not. The kind of spontaneous outcome, the inability to hide initial reactions when face to face is easily avoidable when online. A conscious, cognitive effort is needed to type each and every word into a chat window or blog. You won’t see a person’s jaw drop online, you will only know if they tell you. You won’t hear them laugh, you will only see lol. You won’t hear sarcasm or teasing.
I’ve always had problems with instant messaging. I (usually) treat it as a direct, face to face conversation when the majority of users see it as simply a quick way to chat, nothing serious. This has caused problems for me. I enjoy good conversations and look for it in instant messaging, but it’s hard to get. I’m slowly learning to relax and not take it so seriously, but most of the time I give chats almost 100% of my attention.
So what are we to do? Will we see ourselves slowly spread apart, interacting more and more online, alone in our rooms (or parent’s basement)? Will better forms of online interaction take over (webcams, holograms)? Will there be a backlash and we will see people desperately seek out real, substantial human contact? As history has shown us, there probably won’t be one answer, it will be a mishmash of multiple things.
We just have to remember what being human is, what fulfills our basic needs. We all need friends, connections, a sense of belonging. Can a buddy list do that? Can a blog do that?
So the next time you are sitting alone in your room, just surfing the web, call up a friend, invite them over. Hang out, shoot the shit, ask them what they hope to do, to be. Connect on more than a superficial level. You’d be surprised how alike we all are once we’re open with each other.
