Daniel Konstantinovic
Reporter
Today there exists a strong stigma behind relationships formed online. Online dating commercials more than likely make you laugh, those who have friends they met online are looked at as weird, and in general having a deep, personal relationship – romantic or not – with someone that you didn’t initially meet in person is frowned upon. But really, how different are any of those things from the relationships you have? Do you talk face-to-face with closest friends or do you interact mostly through text? Is the implied distance that exists between online friends really that different from what you or I consider a “normal” relationship, or are they really just the same?
I’d argue the latter. Most relationships today seem to either be void of or have a deficit of meaningful human interaction. We live in a town so small that we’re likely no more than 10 minutes away from each other’s houses, yet when you’re feeling emotional or lonely you don’t choose to drive to a friend’s but instead wallow in your self misery while talking to someone through a glass screen.
Though many conversations you have through text may be deep and insightful, there is a distinct coldness to it when you step back and think about it. Through text there is no tone, no context, and no physicality to the conversation. Physicality may not seem like a major part of conversation, but think about it for a moment. Someone’s facial expression to something you’ve said in a conversation is so important, and their posture and tone are both so vital to understanding what they think. Although it may be easier to communicate with and say sensitive things to people through Facebook, text, e.t.c., the communication is lacking and doesn’t have the meaning or depth to it that face-to-face communication has.
We’ve all heard the tired saying that technology ‘unites us’, but does it really? I don’t think you really need Facebook to ‘unite’ you with people you see every day in school, at sports, or even at the supermarket when you could just talk to them in person. It may be true that technology and social media have great potential to unite us over long-distances, our over-reliance on it for communication causes it to serve a purpose that it was not intended to serve.
So next time you laugh at an online dating commercial I urge you to stop and wonder if any of your relationships are really any different if the large majority of your important conversations are happening through a device. And as much as you may disagree with me, I doubt that the image of a person sitting alone in a dark room hunched over their desk, the only light coming from their laptop as they browse facebook screams ‘connected’ to you.
