Screen-2-Screen vs. Face-2-Face
A friend recently posed this question:
How do you feel technology (particularly information technology) has fractured our society? In what ways has it enhanced community?
When my kids were little, I participated in a Stay At Home Moms online community. I hosted chats that often ran for hours. I moderated numerous bulletin boards. I got to know one women via e-mail, to the point that we considered ourselves “best friends.”
All my online hours kept me from getting out of the house to meet local moms face-to-face. In fact, when I did join a moms’ club, I found it so boring (everyone talked about trivial stuff) I soon quit.
Then came the big disappointment: After months of planning, my “best friend” and I finally met in person. Within the first hour, we both realized that our virtual friendship wasn’t translating well to real life. We hadn’t been dishonest online, and we were trying our best in person. But the heart-to-heart intimacy we’d developed through our written relationship just didn’t flow.
Once I started teaching full-time, online hours became grading hours. Soon, I wasn’t participating in chats or even responding to e-mails. As real and vital as the relationships had felt when I poured hours into them, I found them surprisingly easy to abandon, as if I had come to the end of a novel full of beloved, but fictional, characters. My focus quickly shifted to my here-and-now, in-my-face students.
Virtual Relationships Vs. Real Life Friendships
One thing I’ve learned is that virtual relationships can’t replace face-to-face ones. If I could “do over,” I’d spend less time at the computer screen and more time in the park with other local moms. I’d try harder to move those “trivial” conversations to a deeper level by listening better. I’d invite them over for coffee and spend real life time hanging out
Obviously, I still spend plenty of time online. I’m on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve got this personal blog and will soon launch a professional blog: “eBabies & iTeens & YouToo” focusing on questions adults need to be asking about kids and technology.
I find that technology enhances community the most when I use it to support existing “real life” relationships. I also enjoy establishing new relationships via social networking, but I have very narrow expectations, both for myself and each new “friend.”
Technology destroys community when I allow virtual reality to become an easy substitute for the sometimes hard, and often inconvenient, work of making new face-to-face friends and consciously nurturing my relationships.
What about you?
How do you feel technology (particularly information technology) has fractured our society? In what ways has it enhanced community?
