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Relationships on the Internet
By Marsha Gellerman
Recently, someone who belonged to the same web community sent me a private message. It was a reminder about something I had to do as a member of the community. I replied to them, thanking them for reminding me, and then I voiced my frustration at the changes in the community to them. I even hesitated before pushing the send button, but push it, I did. I'd either opened up a connection by being honest in my feelings, or closed the connection to this person by dumping my frustrations on a stranger. That's a problem on the Internet, there's no physical connection, no ability to look someone in the eye and get a read on their response to you - for good or for bad. Misreading someone's intent towards you is easy enough to mistake in real life, over the net, it's downright impossible to know which way to respond. Which can lead to huge misunderstandings and cutting off easy casual relationships. There's a commercial out now told from the viewpoint of a little girl who "finally" got her parents on the Internet. She expresses her exasperation that they've only made eleven friends. The director then cuts to the parents, who are out with those eleven friends enjoying a day of biking. They then cut back to the little girl, who is home, alone, staring avidly at her laptop, as she announces that she has over three hundred friends and her parents just don't get it. A father, whose little girl was having a sleep over, told one story about the Internet or rather mobile communications. He said that the creepiest thing was to walk into a silent room, where the little girls stood in a circle - and sent text messages to each other. Coming from a background where my mantra was "Never Put It In Writing," the age of the Internet is both liberating and frightening. It's liberating because I can be anyone I want to be, represented by any picture or avatar I choose to use. One can say almost anything - although good manners would dictate that you don't. You can create a persona, and actually become that persona to a host of people. It's frightening for three reasons. 1. The Internet and related technologies has introduced a huge amount of changes into our daily lives. We used to laugh about having to program the VCR for our parents. Now, if we're lucky, our kids can lead us through the complexities of Facebook. 2. The sheer amount of personal information that's readily available to strangers is frightening. I was able to track down my second cousin by both her married and maiden names the web. Her age, address and phone number were publicly available with an option to pay to get more detailed information. 3. The ability to push the button. While the private message I sent was not on the par of Anthony Weiner's notorious act of sending out a "not safe for work" photo to his entire Twitter list, it does shows that you can share too much - at literally, the push of a button. It's bad enough in a work environment, when emails come your way because someone clicked on "reply to all," instead of just "reply." But in an Internet community, it can be difficult to try to navigate between what is okay to say, and what is not. And then, you have to decide whether it's okay to say it to the person you are private messaging. Eventually, the rules will be clear-cut for interactions on the web. Right now, we simply feel our way around and sometimes develop deep friendships. Sometimes though, you just get unfriended, unliked or unfollowed. |
Me on the net!
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I know exactly what you mean. When I wrote a lens in Squidoo, it was about my coming of age and I wondered if I should publish it or not. If finally did and have had a lot of people thank me for writing it. Of course, it could have gone the other way, too, and I have to be rejected (that is in there too). I applaud you for writing this article.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Thank you for your comment. It's tough to not over-share, yet part of the fun of being on the net is exposing little pieces of yourself.
The copyright for this content entitled "Relationships on the Internet" has been specified by the contributor as:
All Rights Reserved
This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
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