eSocialising: Does it exist?

[Ellie]

Do you think it is possible to socialise over the Internet, to a similar extent as to what would be done in "the real world"?

A lot of the time in the media parents preach about how their children are wasting their lives on the Internet, playing games or chatting on forums, and aren;'t getting any social life.

Persnally I think that the Internet offers more of a social life, mainly because the stigmas that might follow someone are taken away. On the Internet you are anyone you want to be, and can chat with anyone you want to chat with, with no risk added to it.

If you found yourself in a tight situation, change your name, and suddenly you are a completely different person.

I know hundreds of people over the Internet who I would call friends (whether they would see it that way or not is up to them of course), and I consider them exactly the same as any "real-life" friends.

Hell, people have even married people they met on the Internet, even on this very forum!

What is your opinion? I'm sure there are people for both sides of the argument here.

 

[mawk]

honestly I'd say the two mediums are about on par. maybe internet is a little lower than real life, just because you can't do things with your internet friends.

On the Internet you are anyone you want to be, and can chat with anyone you want to chat with, with no risk added to it.

this is imo the worst aspect of the internet. normally when people live in the real world, they're subjected to a wide variety of views that generally require them to not be stupid. the world isn't a melting pot that beats people down to fit a certain mold, but living in the real world at least requires you to be able to function as a basic human being and keep an open mind.

on the internet, though, people have the option to only interact with those who share their views. where normally strange cares and stupid ideas would atrophy as the person in question was forced to interact with the real world, this person now has access to a circle of unquestioning supporters, polarizing whatever it is they have in common and changing it from a minor thing to something that completely eclipses their personalities. it's the entire reason furries exist.

so you could call the two things equal, but I've never been able to consider everyone on the internet as real people. the general culture just has too much potential to turn people weird and stubborn about their weirdness.

I know this is gonna be an unpopular viewpoint because it comes off sounding very conformist and that sort of thing but honestly

conformity is one thing

expecting people not to be idiots past a certain point is quite another

 

[Dalton]

Well, my opinion is somewhat seperated.

On one side I don't think, that the internet is a platform that can substitute real life when it comes to socializing.
There is just stuff you can't do on the internet. Heck I enjoy hanging out with my friends sometimes until the early morning hours andhave a hell lot of fun. Sure I can do that on the internet, but never to such an amount as in real life. If I can see the people I am with and could touch them it is a very different feeling.

On the other hand, I met what I think of as one of my closest friends on the internet. Damn we chatted hours and hours for months before we decided to meet each other in real life. by the time we met we could talk as if we had really been with each other for ever. From there I developed realationships with people from her circle of aquaintances.

But as you can see I think that something as friendship should be transfered to real life. I just don't get the feeling for a person if I only know him/her online.

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[Zekallinos]

Internet is very convenient to find a great variety of people that you cannot always find in real life (when was the last time I heard someone talk about indie games IRL?). Like here.

But internet is there as a complement, not a replacement. Socializing on internet just doesn't give you everything real life does. And eventually you will want to get some skills that are applicable where it counts most (where things are, well, real). And this is coming from quite an introvert.

 

[Ellie]

Hmm. If therefore you can socialise with the Internet, do you agree with the people on the news who preach about how teenagers who spend all their time on the Internet are wasting their lives?

Personally? I do. I think while you can socialise with both, you need both. You need to have contact in the real-world. You need to be able to touch, feel, see your friends (read into that what you will); and you simply cannot do that if you are in a chat room or in an MMORPG.

Although (with risk of playing the baww card) for some people who find it hard to interact in social situations it removes the barrier of sight/feel/whatever and the Internet therefore allows you to talk to people a lot more than you would in real life. I'd like to think however that that's a minority of people though, and would not apply to everyone.

 

[Venetia]

i lean more towards miek's point of view, personally. and this is coming from someone who met and now lives with someone i met on this very forum!

additionally, my generation hit the digital age first, but it seems like it came late enough in my life to not have affected those my age quite as hard. but i'm seeing a real difference in the social climate and it's shifting more and more over the years.

i'm not saying that it's necessarily bad but it's not all good, either. we are becoming socially progressive in some ways (being able to talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime) but hugely regressive in others (interpersonal and professional relations).

when i was a receptionist i saw a great example of this. the older people who called in were great. they would tell me who they were calling for and why and that was that. but younger people would typically stutter, and find it difficult to get their point across. even asking for someone's extension would be a pain in many cases, as bewildering as that is. it would be awkward. they wouldn't speak clearly. they didn't respond to greetings, and would hang up inappropriately. this wasn't every time but it was pretty often and usually easily predicted as soon as i heard the age in the caller's voice.

we are also becoming an age of "TMI". the internet has bled into "IRL" interactions--people are becoming more comfortable about sharing things that, as any communications major will tell you, does not need to be shared. it's easier to be an open book on the internet with strangers because it is faceless and without instant or quantifiable consequence. in person, with acquaintances, coworkers, etc., it is an entirely different matter. i can't tell you how many times i've worked with people younger/more internet-centric than me who sit there and give me the skinny on every dirty aspect of their life. it's awkward/unnecessary. and they don't realize it, because they grew up or lived in an entirely different ruleset of norms.

so what does that mean? well, the social climate will shift. norms will change. what's acceptable will change. but we're still in the transition process and will be for some time.

it's still socializing, yes. but it is shaping people in a way that has yet to be seen in our worldwide culture--in fact, it is creating a whole new culture. it's just not entirely known yet if this is a more beneficial or "enlightened" way to be on a large scale.

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[Venetia]

a culture, a large one, not a subculture, isnt created overnight. or sometimes even over multiple decades. it's still developing and isn't entirely defined yet. it's still largely unrecognized by older generations as it's not a culture based on constructs we're used to as a generalized civilization (i.e. religion, beliefs, governmental opinions, physical location).

example: hippies. ok, that's a subculture but work with me. it's immediately visible and identifiable. there are generalizations we can make about it instantly and its affect on people who fall in with it is quantifiable by outsiders. it was formed by people who share a set of beliefs in life practices and/or government-centric opinions.

but the digital culture--there's not even really a broad term for it. it's a massive culture of tiny subcultures. outsiders have a hard time distinguishing it, and there is no set "norm". traditions are mostly un-established. it is being formed by people all over the world, who do not affix themselves to any one set of norms or beliefs. it's still in its infancy.

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[Gray]

People arn't the same as they would be on the internet. For instance, I'm (at times) very serious when on the internet. In reality I'm random, I stutter, and a totaly diffrent person. A friend of mine (school friend) suffers from this personality change too. He becomes an ass. However, others don't suffer from this at all.

It depends who you are, I guess, but eSocialising does exist.

 

[Holk]

eSocializing, or whatever you want to call it, is still a form of socializing. Humans are social beings, and even when someone thinks that they'd rather be completely alone, they never really are. Think of all the shut-ins that spend so much time on internet forums and in chats. Think of hermits who watch TV, or listen to music. These things are all, (if sometimes vague,) forms of socializing. Granted that certain forms, such as media, are vicarious for the most part, they still exude a certain amount of "togetherness" for the length of time that they last. I do agree that the internet is dangerous territory when it comes to those who replace it for a reality-based social life. When online, you only get one small aspect of a social experience: The dialog. You get no inflection, no expression, no body language, no emotion aside from lame smileys that could really mean anything. Take this sentence for example:

"Oh shit, I just saw a car accident."

That sentence, with only text, can mean plenty of things. It can mean that the person thought witnessing the accident was interesting. It can mean that they were frightened. It can mean they were angry. On top of these things, sarcasm is not accounted for.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that socializing online, and through other forms of media is all fine, but isolation is a very sticky web to get caught in. Without a life outside, and physically among other humans, the mind starts to decay.

 

[Zelfouz]

When you converse with someone in the flesh, their tone of voice and body language makes a very significant difference to the meaning they succeed in conveying. Online, body language and tone of voice are stripped completely, and you are forced to make assumptions about the typers intended tone.

When you communicate with someone on the internet, you aren't seeing the person. You're seeing your interpretation of their text can be drastically different from what the typer intended. For this reason, socializing online is not even nearly on par with socializing in person, because online it is impossible to know what a person is actually like.

This gulf between how someone seems online and how they actually are is one reason I avoid chatting with my meat-space friends online. The difference disturbs me to the extent that I just can't tolerate it most of the time.


eta: I agree with Holk.

 

[Gen0cide_]

I don't agree Zelfouz... I see your point but I think, if you know the person you are talkin to on the net, you can imagine what they are feeling at eh time and their emotions and language are still conveyed, like writing a letter to someone.

Obviously people can misinterpret, but the writer knows hes communicating in text so he will write differently to how he talks.

I think texting and other forms of electronic communication (apart from forums and IM) make it very easy to say somethings that you're thinking when you might not have the balls to say it in person. :wink: When I was in high school, I know I thanked god for text. :grin:

 

[tyranius]

I can't stress enough how much wonders internet did to me. Where else could I be an idiot/ass without any consequences? That's Badass!!

 

[Twirly]

I can't stress enough how much wonders internet did to me. Where else could I be an idiot/ass without any consequences? That's Badass!!

Actually, this is one of the very few things I hate about the internet. Acting like that because there are no consequences makes you look like a coward and it's not badass at all.

 

[Ellie]

To be honest the whole troll/jackass/whatever persona is the problem: you could be making good friends on the net; instead you choose to isolate yourself for laughs. I'm not saying that's necessarily bad, if you have friends in the real world (which you probably do). But for people who spend all of their time online for whatever reason, get friends and keep in touch.

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[tyranius]

Nope. I'm not a faggot. I just like the internet because I can say whatever I want. I love when I'm having a discussion with someone and he says something like "I doubt you have the guts to say that on mah face!!", who cares. I can keep annoying him because I know I won't face him IRL. I don't care if anybody thinks I'm a coward as long as I'm having fun.

With that said, I do have some friends outside of the internet, but they're not as appealing as going dungeon exploring with my other friends on WoW.

 

[mawk]

I do have some friends outside of the internet, but they're not as appealing as going dungeon exploring with my other friends on WoW.

you sound like a cool guy