I’ve taken something of an accidental hiatus from the blog the past few months. “Real life” responsibilities left me rather distracted, and without a word, I “disappeared” from the face of the earth, as far as everyone at Dangerous Intersection knew anyway. Or, in my view, Dangerous Intersection perhaps “disappeared” from my radar. Either way, a community of people with whom I had communicated, traded knowledge and ideas suddenly vanished from the world entirely, and I from it. Because DI does not occupy the real world in any tangible sense for me, when I neglected it, it nigh did cease to exist. And likewise, I did not exist to the people who have known me only through it.
This concept got me thinking about the expanse of telecommunications we have in our hands, and what it may mean for real human relationships. Can we define faraway, supposed acquaintances who can vanish from our knowledge at any time (as I did) as “friends”? And, as this post’s title muses, what happens to my online network of psuedobuddies when I leave, or die?
I don’t mean to downplay the potential of online communication. People made due for centuries maintaining meaningful relationships with mere pen-pals, using a far less forgiving medium and time-frame. I think of the letters exchanged between the likes of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, for years upon years, across many miles, maintaining a friendship and respect nearly across the grave, as it turned out [1]. Thus it can clearly happen that long-distance, barely-seen friends can have an impact on one another and form a meaningful bond.
If anything, the internet has expanded that possibility and given us all more access to other people- their work, their photos, their hobbies (like blogging or photography), their fanatic rantings. The immediacy of modern communication can give us more and more intimate long-distance friends. So much so, that we may feel we actually know these people, these identities constructed by the very individual (think of flatteringly-altered photos, omitted details on profiles, and the like).
But perhaps the intimacy comes on too quickly, and without warrant. It appears that psychologically, a screen and a few hundred miles can make us all more forthcoming with out brand new “friends” online. When psychologists want to study touchy issues [2]– like drug use or less-accepted sex practices- they favor computer-administered surveys over oral interviews or even paper questionnaires. Something about that screen [3] makes us open up and feel comfortable enough to divulge the gory details of our lives, apparently.
The sudden intimacy fostered by the internet has brought us great things; collaborations across the globe, the reconnecting of friends separated by oceans and continents, even the collection of sharp minds that write and read here at Dangerous Intersection. It has become a cliché to say that “the world has gotten smaller”, but for our practical purposes, it has. For those in a preciously miniscule minority- say, transgender teens, for example- the internet has made it possible to find common others with whom to relate where once they would have needed to search high and low for an empathetic ear, or worse, felt completely and hopelessly alone. In this way, the internet has become a harbinger of comfort and friendship.
Of course, harmful intimacies flourish online, too. Take Dateline NBC’s immensely popular “To Catch a Predator” [4] series as an example. Teaming up with the sex-offender-busting website, Perverted-Justice [5], a Dateline reporter corners man after man who has attempted to solicit and meet an underage boy or girl online for sex. As much as the media sensationalizes the segment, the exercise does make a valid example of what can happen when strangers can communicate intimately and effortlessly.
But rather than the fear-tactic “horror stories” of the internet, I find fascinating the blend of friendly, far-away relationships, the familiar but distant people we never “meet” face to face, and whether we can ever know or care about them. I return again to my title: what if upon posting this essay, I crash into my keyboard, suddenly dead of a heart attack or stroke or anything else? What would become of those online relationships? How would anyone ever know that I had died rather than gotten distracted once more? And furthermore, should I care whether they know or not? Would I care if someone I faintly “knew” online died in a similar way?
Online communities like Myspace and Facebook have made it easier to confirm the real-world status of a person. If they still log on, they live. If they die or move to a remote nation-state or join an Amish community, you’ll know. Some websites even collect links to the Myspaces of the dead [6], where friends and families may still post in remembrance.
So perhaps these communities will solve the problem of net-life-continuity that vexes me after all. Online communities come with disadvantages, too; stalking or preying upon someone becomes all the easier when you can find your subject’s class schedule, address, and work location in one fell swoop. But local news stations love to hone in on this threat, and no doubt you’ve heard it run into the ground.
We live in a rather paradoxical era- so many ways to access so many people, and yet more and more people complain of feeling alone [7]. People no longer have dinner guests, exchange small talk with the neighbors, or make real-life-friends, it often seems. Yet we flock online for sources of social support, posting on message boards, applying to dating sites, or languishing in chat rooms for hours. It seems oxymoronic, I think, to try to get closer to people by shutting up alone in a room with a computer. At the same time, some of the most high quality discourse I’ve experienced has taken place online, on this very site.
This post does not have a distinct message, only a musing. We live in an age of contradictions, where you may have your most heartfelt discussions with only the text of a person, instead of their face. But we have to make due with our limited (or limiting?) technology, I suppose, and enjoy it for both its benefits and faults.
Print this post [8]
[9]