Jenny and Erin

When I first started spending time on the Internet I felt slightly lost. Who are all of these people? The social cues I was used to depending on when meeting someone were missing; such as how they dress, hold themselves, their tone of voice or even being able to tell if they are actively engaged in a conversation. Funny enough, it didn’t take long before I started to notice similar cues; how a person writes, whether they share a lot or just a little personal information, how they convey emotion, if they YELL a lot, whether they post their picture along with comments or if they respond to everybody or selectively. If you are paying attention, these things are all very telling.

I thought it would be much simpler to contain what is known about oneself on the Internet. I thought it would be easy to disclose only the information you want others to know, whether true or untrue. After spending some time online, I no longer think this is the case – there’s snotty comments, common annoyance with certain people, admiration of others, the ability to track down nearly every word someone has ever said and to know where the person is accessing the internet from. Yep, most websites and blogs have the ability to track your physical location, down to the street. You can be silently watched on the internet, both your words and habits, for a very long time before any contact occurs. Your brilliant ideas, foolish thoughts or hotheaded responses are visible for all to see – and people either accept your words as a snapshot of you at that time understanding the limitations of a single example of written word or these same words stamp a lasting impression of you for old and new viewers alike.

Not all that different from what we experience in person. Each of us will always have those people who knew you “when”. Some of these “whens” feel a little better to be remembered for than others - when you were in high school and acted like a fool, as the party girl in college, when you lost your temper at a friend in the middle of dinner at a fancy restaurant, the night you had amazingly brilliant and accurate reflections on the world, and so forth. It doesn’t matter how far you go in life at some point these people will inevitably catch up and remind you of who you used to be. Just as online these times do not necessary stay in the past.

I am surprised at how different and yet similar these two ways of communicating are. I am also surprised at how difficult it is to hide your core self online. Do I think it can be done, yes. But I imagine it comes at the same cost as hiding your core self in your daily interactions out in the “real” world. Hiding brings inauthentic friendships, relationships and the hollowness that living a persona for the world entails. Yes, I believe the stories of people being lied to or taken advantage of over the internet - just as I do of people being lied to or taken advantage of in their every day lives – as they are not all that different.

This entry was posted in Social Commentary on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 by Jenny. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.