In order to better present my argument I am first going to define what I mean by “Digital,” “Digital Relationships,” “Analog,” and “Analog Emotions.” I think it’s important for the sake of this discussion to define said terms in order to better connect you to the current state of my belief.
“Digital” as per the way I am going to use it, will be defined by “virtual and online,” a state of One’s and Zero’s that are distributed through the internet(system of networks) and only interpreted via some sort of medium(monitor, cell phone display, TV, and possible other devices.)
“Digital Relationships,” means relationships held but not necessarily originated from the internet. Example: A friend from college who you no longer keep in contact with via phone, in person, but in virtual presence only, using such mediums as (Facebook, MySpace, Email, Blogs, etc.) This may also include friends of friends, people you may know through others but do not consider to have a personal relationship with, only a “digital’ one.
“Analog,” a pattern/wave something that cannot be conveyed digitally. Some may say that Analog is an organic/natural experience only, can only be captured through the 5 senses. Due to the fact digital is composed of ones and zeros, and there is no transitory state, nothing even audio cannot be translated 100% accurately in the digital realm.
“Analog Emotions,” the idea is that emotions are Analog in nature, and cannot be completely translated into a digital medium. There may be interpretative and translational methods to improve understanding of emotions, but the core feeling can never be conveyed without tone,pitch,facial expressions,body language, etc.
So now that I have defined the terms used in the subject of this piece, I would like first to address the problem.
The problem: People are relying more and more on maintaining digital relationships with one another, whether it be business, personal or a mix of both, using the internet. This then factors in on the communication of emotions via this digital form causes misinterpretation of emotions, because the digital medium is unable to convey an analog “expression.”
So now we have addressed the problem in a general sense and I will continue to produce evidence and examples to support my observation of the above problem. The Digital Relationships maintained between people are increasing, millions of people are joining social networking groups such as MySpace and Facebook each year. With the rising numbers means less personal communication through traditional means(voice,in person) and more communication in digital means(twits,email,”wall posts.”) What use to be a phone call 10 years ago to a friend to see how they were doing, a conversation in which most likely lasted 5 minutes to an hour, has now become a one to three sentence blurb on a semi-public forum(whether it be public in regards to facebook networks, or public in the sense of the unsecured side of the digital network, and lack of privacy.) There is also a gaining sense of insincerity in such communications, because the lack of effort it takes to initiate a query onto ones Digital friend.
So even thou from the get go, it seems there is a barrier to cross in just the formation and maintaining of Digital Relationships that already cannot seem to simulate traditional means. Now I am willing to admit that maybe what I deem traditional is no longer relevant in the “evolving” digital age, but I will argue soon that I believe that is not a good thing, nor productive for relationships in general.
So if we ignore some of the said drawbacks of a Digital Relationship that are more obvious, it brings us to one of the more frequent uses of the Digital realm, and relationship management, and that is conveying a sense of emotion. I use the term emotion to convey all senses of the word, whether it be humor, sadness, anger, happiness, anxiety, etc. One may simply be using this new forum as a way to communicate a joke, or to just let someone know how angry they were at the man who bumped into them on the way to grabbing a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So what I will need to do, to enforce this statement, is to give an example (which by using digital form should be reinforced.)
Example A. Medium: Facebook Status update, “Wife and I had a fight today about what to have for dinner”
Example B. Medium: Public Message Post on Friends page: “Congrats on getting engaged, im so happy for you!!!!!!!! lolzer”
We will start with the emotions express in Example A. Now some people know my relationship with my wife and I very well and also know how we interact with each other. However some people in my digital network of relationships may not understand my real life relationships and misinterpret. Why does this happen? First of all I would like to identify that in this generic update there is no tone,pitch,facial expression, exaggeration, etc attached to this.
Why? because the written language does not allow a simple way to communicate those emotions without speaking in the third person. You simply cannot identify those analog emotions in generic first person prose. You can attempt to emphasize words with using italics, bolds, underlines and other literary methods but none that have any general consensus on how they will be interpreted by the general educated public. I may of been saying that in my head or in person that we had a fight. What I really meant to convey is that we have very different tastes in food, and we didn’t have a serious fight, but one in jest. This is because if you knew our relationship you would know how different we are when it comes to food, and how that adds to the dynamic of our relationship.
The typical response seen to these updates, are peoples response, in a completely digital way. “Are you guys ok?”, “Why were you guys fighting over this?”, and “If you need to talk to me, just send me a message, ok?”. The very structure of emotional connection is being jeopardized by this sorts of responses, especially when sincerity is lacked in all inquiries. If there was anyone of serious concern, Would you use such a time latent response medium to find the answer to your question? or would you approach it from a more direct, immediate response method? I would assume that if you truly cared, it would be the latter.
Moving on from the first example, we will tackle the implications of the second example.
Example B. Medium: Public Message Post: “Congrats on getting engaged, im so happy for you!!!!!!!! lolzer”
This example is a more realistic as a variation of this has occurred to me personally when I was joking around with someone who normally in the real world understands my sense of humor. I used it in reply to another comment left by the original recipient, which in my mind my logical sense to follow up with, especially including the LOLZER, which is obviously rooted from LOL(Laughing out Loud) and added the “zer”, for my own personal touch. What we forget about the digital medium especially with relationships is that people use these mediums as a way to connect all sorts of digital relationships and allow you to view the communication between two individuals. Which allows it to be open for communication or even intervention.
So what is normally just a friendly joke between two real life friends, turned into something of a dramatic escapade. The reason for this is the inability to filter who perceives this and who else may be on the other end of the digital relationship, and who they are sharing this information with. Personally I do not have any immediate family on my “facebook” but mainly friends who understand who I am and how I interact with others. What I forgot, and I believe whole heartedly was not my fault at the time, is that others use these mediums to connect to people that they already have full real life access to 100% of the time, such as parents and siblings. I may disagree with the fact that people are using this medium to connect to people that they are already essentially connected to in real life(such as parents, brothers and sisters, etc). However it doesn’t make it any less real that it is occurring more frequently.
What this leaves is people not born of the internet and digital age who use a medium in which they do not fully understand, nor know how to interpret its new language. What I mean by language is internet communication methods such as using LOL, Italics, Bold, and other acronyms that may symbolize something more that what is stated in the language itself. This leads to the family feeling that they have been undermined by their own close and personal relationships because they are finding out, what should be sensitive information from others and not directly from the source. Which if it was actual factual information would be very hurting emotionally and possibly violating of ones trust in said relationships.
So as you may or may not see, I feel above is a new problem being faced by relationships in this new digital age. However is there a real solution? I would like to think that we could learn from our mistakes and go back to a more traditional way of communication and developing relationships, however as we evolve digitally, we seem to be devolving in our analog ways. As digital forms evolve, and we rely less and less on text based communication we may be able to overcome some of these hurdles, however I think it is a real problem, that does not seem to be going away, but instead growing in size and measure. A lot of people communicate digitally, and If anything comes from this article, I would hope that it is an extra amount of thought going into the way you wish to present yourself and communicate with others around you.
So is there meaning to digital relationships with no analog counterpart, pure digital experiences that never bubble outside of your terminal? Well that is for you to decide and think about.
Update: I make this update, after I have had some responses from close friends. I took out IM, because that is away for immediate response and conversation and also allows for you to respond, and explain if there is any misunderstanding in communication. I communicate with many of close friends this fashion, and our relationships aren’t fake or any less prudent, it just happens to be a cheap and easy way to communicate. It is probably the closest digital communication method you can get to analog as it happens in real time.
