If you believe the hype, the world will soon be one big
electronic social network. Let’s hope not because the antisocial
aspects of that will be very serious.
If you believe the hype, the world will soon be one big electronic social network. Let’s hope not because the antisocial aspects of that will be very serious.
Humans all wear masks, electronic social networking allows them to hide behind those masks from everyone including themselves; overdoing it is unhealthy. It’s like being in the advertising business – facebook pages, text messages and tweets are not us, they are merely edited, glossy versions, of who we really are.
I’m hardly a social butterfly, but I consider my human encounters very important. I like to take the measure of the people I’m talking to by observing their body language, facial expressions, demeanor and all the other outward and subliminal personality hints humans emit and other humans have learned to read over their evolutionary history. Those who are expert at disguising their true selves can still fool me, but I’m conceited enough to believe it’s a lot harder for them to do it face-to-face than electronically.
When we post texted reactions such as LOL (laugh out loud), OMG (oh, my God) or SMH (shaking my head), we’re usually not just emoting, but we are often analyzing and presenting like an insincere laugh. Those extra steps, the analysis and presentation, are the difference between personal interaction and electronic exchanges.
A few characters on a keyboard providing a shorthand version of real emotion cannot substitute for the depth of human expression; 459 means “I love you” in text because ILY is 459 using keypad numbers, but so does 831, because it’s 8 letters and 3 words with 1 meaning.
It’s about as romantic as communicating with ten-code. Can I get a 10-4 on that?
No, I’m not a technophobe. Electronic gateways provide unprecedented access to information, a way to meet new people the world over, and they cannot be beat for exchanging everything from family pictures to complex databases, but we too often let the media drive the message.
Another problem with electronic networking is the blessing and curse of portability. Portability enables communication to be both available and ever-present, invading every nook and cranny of the day. It’s amazing how many people pride themselves on never being disconnected, they communicate constantly – while driving, walking, running, working and playing. But people are not machines, when they are processing inputs and generating outputs they are distracted and they cannot concentrate. If every waking moment is so busy when is there time to think? Thinking about others, the world, the universe and ourselves is a key element in being human and while processors go faster and faster, humans cannot.
Technology is incredible, it can bring us everything – everything that is, but our true selves. To find that we must look inward and understand who we are. None of us is perfect; we are not TV commercials, but complex individual and interacting social organisms. Take away introspection and you take away one critical component that makes us human.
Life is not about fulfilling a bucket list of things to do before you die and neither is it about how many pelts you have nailed to the wall; it’s made up of a bit of everything you touch and a whole lot of yourself. If you cannot come to terms with it any other way, try sending yourself a text message that reads, “Who are you, really?”
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
