So I was thinking a few weeks ago how agoraphobic we are becoming in society today because we're not very keen to have face-to-face communications with anyone because of the chance that it might become awkward or you may embarrass yourself. Well, technology is making it very easy to pick up this phobia. Look at yourself right now, what are you doing? You're reading this blog post by a person who owns a domain on a website accessible from anywhere around the world. I am talking to you right now without actually talking to you. I am talking to the hundreds of my viewers from all across the globe through the internet. Something that did not exist twenty or thirty years ago...How about something else...talking to people. Before the telephone, the only way you could talk to someone was to go to their house and talk to them. Or run into them at the market. The alternative was a telegraph, or maybe a letter which sometimes got lost. Then with the telephone, things got pretty easy. You could call someone and say what you need to without actually meeting them. You can laugh, you can argue, you can make each other cry. You weren't even face to face! Just hearing their tone of voice and listening to how they stressed the words was enough. Granted, it wasn't as amazing as meeting with someone face to face, but it was very convenient.
With the internet came email and instant messaging, which was great. Now with email you can talk to someone or send someone something without them having to be on the line with you. It's very easy and creative, you can make appointments and send birthday cards that are colorful and cheesy, you can even email multiple people at once. It was a fast way to get a message across. Instant messaging was nice too, now someone can be chatting with someone else and also be working on homework, eating, or just browsing the web, or talking to someone when you need to be in silence. It frees up space in the brain so now you can talk to that person and work on other things as well. Thing is, these easy widgets lead to a problem. The factor of hearing that person's voice, and getting at whether they are angry, sarcastic, dry, sad, or genuinely happy (yes you can hear if someone is happy or not) is gone. Replaced by emoticons like :) and :P and :o and ;) and so on. Then came the more creative ones like ^_^ and -_- and T_T and O_O and ._. and so on. There are also options for even more smileys on smartphones like Apple and Android, but I'll get to that later. My point is, with the internet, people started to substitute phone calls and face-to-face meetings with instant messaging and email. Well at least that's a good thing we need to be near an internet source then right? Once we're away from home we have to use other forms of communication like our cool cell phones!
When cell phones were invented in in 1970's, they did not at first come with SMS (Short Messaging Service), what we know as texting. It wasn't until the late 1990's to early 2000's that it became available and a few years after that before it became popular. Once it did reach a high level of popularity, things started to get weird. People began to send more messages than they placed calls. More and more conversations happened via text than through phone call. It hit a point after that where people would feel nervous to call the person on the phone, preferring to text instead. Soon, to a lot of people, using the phone became awkward. It didn't matter though, we were still talking to people...sort of.
Then came my favorite...social networks. Starting with Myspace then going to Facebook and Twitter was an interesting move on our social lives. What used to be the private happenings of our lives now became our status updates. Are you seeing someone? If you are why have you not updated your status yet? Have something to say? Talk about it! At first, it was okay not to post pictures of events or talk about what you are doing, but at this point, it became an integrated part of our social life. If you are not communicating using Facebook, you miss out on event invitations and people's most recent news. People expect you to know what they are up to if they put it up on Facebook. Twitter is all about what you are thinking, how you are feeling, and sometimes even what is happening at the moment, and to relay it in 140 characters. These social networks were an amazing catalyst for the Arab Spring in the Middle East. It was a way to relay information quickly and efficiently to the masses. Now you may think, "Okay, social networks are an amazing thing! We are being social!" Well that is true, but think about the amount of people who are very comfortable in front of their computer screens, teasing people and cyber bullying others when in reality, they cannot say the same things to that person's face. Furthermore, with this form of communication, you have no voice or visual about how the person reacted to a situation. What you read as someone's response to a certain post is not a true representation of how they actually reacted. How is "LOL!" and "HAHAHAHA OMG" as equivalent as watching someone laugh so hard it brought tears to their eyes. And how do you know that person is actually laughing? I've seen people type stuff even more expressive than the things above, all while keeping a straight face. Is that even normal? Then there is the case of people using social networks and texting all of those things more than face-to-face contact. Since they don't have practice with conversation starters and transitioning conversations, we are getting a lot more "awkward moments" than the generations before us. People just don't know how to react anymore. Still confused? Think about this:
Leaving campus, Sarah and Megan join in a conversation with John and Rachel. Rachel talks about something and finishes what she said and it just becomes quiet. No one has anything to say that pertains to what Rachel said, so no one is talking. This silence becomes uncomfortable so Sarah mumbles, "Well this is awkward." They laugh and change the topic.
Funny thing is this is not a made-up situation. I've seen this conversation happen firsthand. People are forgetting how to respond to someone right away. With social networks and email and texting, people have time to write exactly how they want something put in a sentence, and when you write something you probably edit it before you send it. With talking, the minute you say it, it is out there and there is no backspace button. Also, if someone says something, you need to reply right away. You don't have time to think up a response. And if something insulting fazed you, there is no hiding it like so many people do on Facebook. People pick up on your visual cues faster than you can compose yourself. So as you can imagine, some people think of how it is so hard to talk to someone face-to-face, so a lot of people try to avoid people to avoid awkward situations. Thus making them antisocial.
Finally, people are becoming agoraphobic too. Agoraphobia is the fear of places that are associated with a feeling of anxiety. Why are we all developing this? Think of how much you can get done without ever having to leave your house. You can order your pizza online, complete with your topping orders and everything. You may now do your banking online and never deal with a person at the bank. Oh and who needs department stores or going to the mall? You can order things from online stores too, and have things custom-made if you really want to. Who needs book stores and toy stores and everything in between when you have websites like amazon.com and a hundred other places to order from. Have a lot of garage-worthy junk at home? Why only sell to your neighbors? Put it up on Ebay and sell it to the world.
Our world has changed so drastically in the last twenty years it's crazy to think what would happen twenty years from now. I just keep thinking of Wall-E's world and what happened to the people in their high-tech bubbles. I guess all I'm saying is be careful not to completely lose touch of communicating with others face-to-face, and sometimes you should actually go out and buy something rather than just conveniently getting it online. Actually hearing and seeing people and interacting with them is far more rewarding and comforting than through text messages and social networks. I'm not saying you should stop using them because that would be ridiculous. All I'm saying is be aware that you may be losing touch of your face-to-face social skills. If you start feeling a nudge in you to avoid a situation with someone because it may be awkward, force yourself to go for it instead and get over your fear. Do not succumb to the comfort of your computer.
