Technology and Social Interaction

With all the new ways of communication online, I think we have to find a balance between virtual and face-to-face communication. If you're only used to talking to someone online, you're going to have a difficult time meeting new people in the real world. There are so many little social cues and nuances that disappear when you're online. Sarcasm does not translate well through written text; I've tried numerous times and each interaction became super awkward.

When I was younger, I was a huge AOL Instant Messenger user (AIM). I would constantly use that medium to talk to my friends after school. I never was a big texting person because you had to condense your words into the small 140 character limit. With AIM, I could ramble as much as I wanted. I even think all my years IM-ing people has made me a faster typer. But because I met my friends first in person at school, talking online didn't affect my relationships with them. I've have noticed however the effects of simply talking with a person through email, IMs, Facebook etc. 

I had a best friend from elementary school that I used to talk to constantly. We were attached at the hip at school. We always spent the night at each other's houses every weekend, play dates after school, etc. She moved to Nevada in fourth grade, and we soon moved to communicating through phone calls and letters. Once we were older, we moved to emails, and then Myspace, then Facebook. We stuck with emails for a long time. She would write to me, then a week or so later I would write back, detailing everything that happened previously. It worked really well for a while, but then the emails became more spread out, replies took longer, then soon we only talked through Facebook. I still thought we were relatively close friends, maybe things changed because we're older, but nonetheless we're still best friends. I didn't realize how much has changed until I flew out to visit her for a couple days. Things were great the first day, but then I noticed that we soon ran out of things to talk about. The convenience of email and everything was that you avoided those awkward pauses in real life conversation. If I couldn't think of anything to talk about, I could wait a couple days to reply to her email. You can't avoid that awkwardness in real life. After that visit, I haven't talked to her in a long time. There will still be the occasional comment or post on Facebook, but we're not really friends anymore.

If there isn't a good balance of face-to-face and internet conversations, then technology can have a negative effect on our relationships. In my friend's case, technology dragged and bogged out our friendship. If we stuck to communication in real life, it probably would have naturally ended when it needed to. As long as there's that balance, I think technology can have a positive impact. Skype has helped maintain that balance. I use it to talk to my friends away at other colleges, and to talk to family members back home.

I think the real challenge is meeting people first online. Internet dating sites are big, and I've heard cute love stories of people finding their future husbands and wives through sites like Match.com. It can be a good start to meeting people, but you can't simply have a online relationship and think it'll work. I personally would go crazy if I made a new friend online, but had no way of ever meeting up with them in real life because then what's the point? Why be friends if you can't actually go out in public with him or her? You also need to see those little facial expressions and nuances. What if the person in real life was a total jerk and loser to be around? All of that can disappear online; you can basically create a new persona and identity. The internet can be great, but I think we need to remember that life happens offline in the real world too.