The Internet magnifies life. Life under a microscope. The big fish in the small pond. Or, y'know, really huge fish in an infintessimally large ocean, all milling around interconnecting with each other but still, y'know, BIG. Except the large ocean is actually just a puddle. But the fish swimming in it don't have, y'know, perspective.
I live on the Internet. It's where I do business, where I go to entertain myself, chat with friends, communicate. I bank online. I'm in that category of people who sometimes forget that if you need to get ahold of someone RIGHT NOW, and they're not on ICQ, there's always this thing called a phone.
It's like the 'Net is my whole world. I go into withdrawals if I have to spend a day without email. If I've been out, the first thing when I get home is check my email, rather than my answering machine messages (what is that phone thing anyway?) so I can stay CONNECTED.
This, by the way, isn't very healthy over the long term, kids. Go play outside like your mom told you. I'm not kidding.
The danger inherent in this level of 'Net immersion (other than Vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight) is that everything that happens in this virtual world becomes of vital importance.
Disagreements, for example, become HUGE. Instead of a momentary "you're SO full of crap," they become a huge diatribe that is SO MEANINGFUL and one MUST at all costs GET ONE'S POINT ACROSS, NO ISSUE TOO SMALL, as one screams across the void, desperate to be heard.
Emotional states magnify because there's no way to convey emotion across the web. Emoticons can only do so much. There's eye contact, vocal timbre and a thousand little body-language postures and gestures that are lost. So we attempt to make up for them with words. We try to convey our human expressions, evolved over centuries, with mere text-- which can convey quite a different emotion (and thereby cause a vastly opposite reaction) than we intended.
A buddy of mine says "You make the mistake of thinking conversations on the net aren't real. They ARE real. You can't trivialize them."
Balls.
Saying that a 'net conversation is "real" the way a face-to-face, sit 'em down talk with a REAL HUMAN BEING is "real" is like saying that seeing a .jpg image of a Rembrandt is as real as seeing the original work in the Louvre.
Chatting over ICQ relies only on text, and strips all the humanity out of what one is saying. One has only one's inner perceptions to go on; I can't tell you how many online arguments I've got into because the person on the other end is judging my words by their own example, completely removing me from the equation.
So how does this equate to the Internet magnifying things?
We fill in the blanks. With our imagination. And because we do that, things are ever so much bigger, grander, perceived as infinitely MORE because they are supplied by our own fantasy.
Thus, that tiny little argument becomes this huge big thing. This drawn-out affair. The casual recognition of things in common becomes an online love-affair-- only to be dashed upon actual meeting. The request for aid becomes a cry for help, and the cry for help becomes a need for institutionalization-- d'you see where this is going?
Got into a flame war on this blog, in the comments section recently. (I deleted it-- it was tawdry and doesn't bear repeating.) Despite my "great experience" in Internet matters. It went on for a week, this back-and-forth astound-with-logic, scathing-retort, sarcasm, and eventual plain sniping-- and I gave my HEAD a shake, went out into the REAL world away from the damn computer, and had the problem solved in seven minutes over coffee.
And god, was I embarrassed. Because really, I should know better.
The 'Net is a great place to OPEN dialogue, and chat about inconsequentials. But my advice to all of you, Agents, is that if you need to discuss something with MEANING to it, something serious, go offline and meet in person. It'll give you a break from The Screen and re-affirm your ability to enjoy human contact.
And for those of you who hang around online looking for therapy, I feel for you. Your depression and lifestyle can only get worse unless you break the link, sever the connection, and go outside once in a while.
And by the way? That coffee was GREAT.
ATKINS WATCH |
| Elapsed Time: One Week Today Time Remaining: One More Week Pounds Lost: Eight Goal Remaining (target 200 lbs.): EIGHT LBS. |
I certainly enjoyed my root beer (I don't drink coffee). Lets do it again sometime - sans duelling hysterics
Posted by: Quixote on September 15, 2003 01:23 PMInteresting blog... brought back a lot of memories for me. I was one of those 'internet addicts' as I call them, back in the day when 1200 baud was the standard and 2400 baud was living large :)
I found myself totally immersed in the networld from the moment I woke up, at work, and then when I got home till I went to bed. It got to a point where there were so many soap operas happening in my networld that I was hiding more and more from the real world.... friends finally did an intervention on me and brought me back out to the light... sunlight that is :)
You are absolutely right, there is no way you can have a meaningful conversation on the net, you need to absorb the other person's nuances and inflections and make eye contact to get a true conversation happening. You can't get close to a console... but you can to a person. People are too able to hide what they are really thinking and feeling on the web and it is way too easy to mistake a comment for what it isn't intended to mean.
Think of all the good energy you are missing by not being near people or being able to touch them... and there is nothing I love better than a great hug from friends.
Posted by: MrsACK on September 15, 2003 01:38 PMBecause your refusal to consider Internet conversations “real” was a large contributing factor in my deciding to end our friendship a couple of years ago, I feel justified in saying: No! Bad Michael! Bad!
Conversations over the Internet are just as real as conversations over the phone, or in person. And the reason they are real is because there is a real person on the other end, with real thoughts and real feelings. Real (albeit somewhat limited) communication is taking place between two real people; ergo, it’s a real conversation, not the Turing test you seem to believe.
You forget that sometimes. Most recently this week, and most notably a couple of years ago, with me.
What I think the problem is--and note that this is the point in the entry where I resort to sheer opinion--is that you’ve spent far too long role-playing. You’re not you posting: you’re Agent M, ranting, or Riverdale, flirting, or one other persona who shall remain unnamed, making dirty, dirty money.
I’m well aware a lot of that goes on, on the Net. I even realize that it’s absolutely necessary for you to divorce your online personae (particularly the third one) with your actual person. But you’d best make sure that the other person realizes that you don’t think any of it is real or there will be problems, just as there have been here.
I, for example, do not assume an online persona at all. There is no Hawkstone character I become. I make a point of calling people by their actual names, when I know them, and I have been openly hostile to people who call me “Hawkstone” (or worse, “Hawky”) in real life. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the way I present myself online is truer to my real self than I am in person--since usually in person I’m Making With The Funny and clowning around with Kyle. Then I assume various personae, believe me.
(New players in Twilight are always startled to discover that the two biggest idiots in the game also help run it.)
In fact, I would be pleased and gratified to find that someone had formed an opinion of me based on my blog, rather than who I appear to be in real life. I doubt you feel the same way.
Remember to drop character sometimes, particularly when discussions escalate. Remember that the Internet is essentially a glorified phone you type into, and the person on the other end might be taking you seriously, even if you aren’t.
But, all that being said, your point about online love affairs is well taken. :)
Posted by: Mike on September 16, 2003 11:12 AMReally interesting point of view.
The irony I find in your opinion is that I think you're really seeing me through your own example.
I actually don't roleplay online; it's always me. When I'm "Agent M" on here, it's only for the purposes of the actual blog entry, to give the blog a cohesive "feel" as if they were reading a spy's notes from a field mission (although I'm pretty lax about that); my comments, however, are purely me.
And yet you do all your roleplaying and masking in real life. Of COURSE you'd find the Internet more real, where you don't have to hide.
What I'm saying, however, is that meaning can be lost when not accompanied by nuance.
In your case, the disagreement we had this week began in real life, and not on the net-- because you did not catch, or I did not properly convey, the nuances I was trying to put into my conversation. And that can happen in real life, sure.
But I put it to you that it happens a lot more on the net than off.
I also seem to have left you with the impression that I don't believe any 'net conversation is REAL. Tricky word, "real." I'll have to watch that.
What I mean to say, and I'll be as careful as I can with this sentence, is that a serious matter like a relationship, friendship-altering argument, or need for emotional support should best be conducted out in the real world. The net is great for FACTS-- dry, precise facts. Just like any book.
But if you're looking for reaction, or attempting to find out how someone feels about something, the best you can do on the net is INTUIT the emotional response. In real life you can do more than that.
When I was disgruntled with how your love relationship impacted on our friendship, I should have come to you personally and privately about it. (Although, by the example you post above, it sounds to me like that might not have been a good idea either, if you were masking.)
But to repeat, I do not divorce my real life self from my Net self. They're one and the same. Sure, I don't call myself "Michael" on all my chat programs, any more than you do-- why DO you use Hawkstone, anyway, if you're not into personas at all?-- but it's still me.
Your psychology fascinates me; the amount of time you spend on your blog analyzing your thoughts, and then to have these discussions where it seems to me that you are reverse-engineered from the majority, gives great insight. I only hope other people who comment here leave as much insight into their views on the subject as you do.
M
Posted by: Agent M on September 16, 2003 12:14 PM[why DO you use Hawkstone, anyway, if you're not into personas at all?]
Well, that's the weird thing. When I first went online, I used my own name--and I had trouble fitting in or being taken seriously. I guess people assumed I wasn't intelligent or creative enough to devise a handle or something, although honestly I have no idea why. Anyway, as soon as I picked one (which of course wasn't "Hawkstone") that changed immediately. So I use Hawkstone on ICQ and chat boards and sometimes I draw a gargoyle that looks like me and call it that. But I don't BE him; there's no separate "him" to be.
And we've been over this. It wasn't that you hated Kez. It was that you hated Kez at top volume and wouldn't do me the courtesy of letting me make my own mistakes, thank you. You insisted on saving me, no matter how much (mostly, yes, over ICQ) I asked you please to stop. Either you didn't take me seriously or you thought I was kidding or you didn't think it was real or you just didn't agree, I'm not sure what, and eventually I couldn't take it any more and left.
THEN you wanted to talk, but by then I was long finished trying to. "But--that was online, it didn't count!" you protested. Did to me.
Posted by: Mike on September 16, 2003 12:36 PMLet's face it: I have an obstinate need to be heard. Dismissal is simply not an option in my mind.
However, when dealing with you and your oddly-engineered cranium in the future, I'll remember to confront you in person first. Quick, incisive, surgical. It's what you seem to respond best to.
That is, if I can ever find you alone without Kyle. :)
Ah well. We all learn from our mistakes, don't we.
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