The need to belong has always been a part of life, and drives people to branch out and socially interact with those around them. Accordingly, it has also driven brighter minds to invent tools to facilitate the formation of these relationships we desire. Before Alexander Graham Bell, the only way to keep in touch with an out-of-town relative was by post. Since the initial arrival of the telephone, researchers and developers have made it possible for one to call the house next door, or a house on the opposite of the globe, thousands of miles away. Then came the Internet, from which spawned innovative forms of social technology such as email, chat rooms, and networking websites. Now, the mobile cell phones people have telephone, messaging, and Internet capabilities. Over the course of all the technological advancements, the need for personal, face-to-face communication has gradually diminished, resulting in lower amounts of it. While relationships can now be cultivated over great distances, their quality and depth tends to be suspect, in a world where facial recognition is being phased out by screen name recognition. Today’s advanced technology in communication has allowed for convenient, expedient, and far-reaching connections to be made among those in the modern world. However, the endless growth and spread of emails, text messages, and online chat services is atrophying man’s fundamental social skills, both verbal and nonverbal, and subsequently establishing a modern definition of social interaction.
In the earliest of civilizations, the ability to socialize and be one of a whole has been essential to survival. Rowland Miller and Daniel Perlman illustrate this foundation of society in their book, Intimate Relationships:
Because early humans lived in small tribal groups surrounded by a difficult environment full of saber-toothed tigers, people who were loners were less likely than gregarious humans to have children who would grow to maturity and reproduce. In such a setting, a tendency to form stable, affectionate connections to others would have been evolutionarily adaptive, making it more likely that one’s children would survive and thrive.
Whether it be primitive grunting or words strung together to form sentences, communication among one another was, is and will continue to be the building block to forming the social relationships humans need. Simple telegraphic phrases have expanded into countless elaborate language systems. Beyond verbal interaction, nonverbal communication grew and developed, such as facial expressions and body language. In the classic video depictions of prehistoric life, one could mute the presentation, and the frustration and then amazement from the discovery of fire are clearly evident from the caveman’s face. As generations passed, social skills continued to grow, increasing in efficiency, creativity, and subtlety. They grew into the personal interactions we observe today at a dinner table, at the coffee shop, and at the local pub. These social skill sets we now possess, after centuries of maturation and evolutionary pruning, allow us to maintain existing relationships and generate new ones, satisfying the need to belong and find a place in the world around us.
A key variable in our social development is the technological advances we have seen in the past few generations. Long ago, the arrival of the telephone was revolutionary, producing widespread amazement at the ability to hear the voice of another despite being far from one’s current location. From the telephone spawned the mobile telephone, otherwise known as a cell phone. Now, it was possible to get in touch with a significant other while on the move. As the technology and the popularity of cell phones grew (and their physical sizes shrunk, from the original cinder brick dimensions), so did the average coverage of an individual’s social network. Cell phones allowed for constant verbal interaction between people, no matter their locations. Then, their capabilities advanced further, as text messaging was invented and added as a cell feature. Soon, the most basic functions of every cell phone were calling and texting. Communication history was made, as phones could now provide the means for oral and written interaction around the country and some around the world, while either sitting at home or traveling on the road, or both.
The advent of the internet is another monumental technological progression that created a large splash in our pools of socialization and communication. The existence of some global network, instantly connecting millions of users in all different locations is like one, enormous community center, where congregations of different cultures can meet and interact with one another, a modern agora. The internet gave people a world of potential and endless possibilities, including but not limited to: emailing, sharing experiences through pictures and videos, researching the perfect vacation destination, purchasing a new pair of shoes, instant messaging and chatting with both old friends and newly-met acquaintances, meeting complete strangers (or their online identity), finding a husband or wife, and the list goes on. Emailing and instant messaging, in particular, has fostered interaction between two people even if one resides in Chicago and the other in Sydney, Australia. At the same time, it also satisfies the human need for instant gratification, hence the term instant messaging. In the workplace, emails and instant messages have allowed for greater efficiency and quicker correspondence, turning a business into a better-oiled machine. While there are those who claim instant messaging is another source of distraction and interruption, the true effects lie in the usage of the service: "Instead of dropping in unexpectedly, many are using the technology to check in with coworkers to see when they are available. Many also use the technology to get quick answers to general questions or to inquire about current work tasks instead of engaging in longer face-to-face conversations." With the powerful technology of cell phones and the internet, global communication functions like a business, like a well-oiled machine.
Alas, humans are not machines; our communication and socialization has evolved into more than what sound bytes, video pixels, and extravagant text fonts are capable of expressing. The finely-tuned set of social skills our race has developed over time is not simply being supplemented by all the great modern advances like the cell phone and the internet. Instead, as Neil Postman would describe, "it changes everything."
Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything.
Postman’s applied this red-dye notion to Gutenberg’s printing press and the new age of television, and it also applies to an even newer age of the internet, cell phones, and smart phones (cell phones with email and internet capabilities). These new innovations have made global communication possible, but they have also altered the common definition of communication in modern society.
Face-to-face conversation is most likely the classic visualization of communication between two people. In this age, even phone conversations typify what is classic, possibly vintage to younger demographics. Texting is the new way of communicating, it is convenient, discrete, and you can do it while multitasking. In a 2004 study performed at the University of Plymouth, people who talked on phones, “Talkers,” were socially and psychologically compared to people who texted, “Texters.” Results indicated that “texting seemed to facilitate the expression of some peoples real-self. Those people tended to be those who were socially anxious and lonely…” These results were supported by the fact that “texting permits visual anonymity and its asynchronous nature allows for editing and self-reflection.” So while texting may give those less socially able an opportunity open up and reveal their true self, the same nature of texting also opens the door to deception or the creation of an alternative identity. Essentially, the person on the other side of your text conversation is either disclosing what is real, or hiding it. There is less mystery with phone conversations, as voice intonations and the immediate call for a response go a long way in baring genuine expressions. Interactions that occur in person are even more transparency, offering nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and subtle body language to both parties involved, assuming the participant possess the social skills to read these cues. And skill requires amounts of practice, which is gradually reduced with each text message we send.
Every instant message sent over the internet also steadily grinds away at the social proficiency developed by previous generations. In fact, the anonymity is further accentuated, as users fabricate screen names by which they are identified online. This would seem to be the final step in producing an alter ego, where one can choose to be real and candid, or shallow and illusory. The enigmatic nature of online interaction is reflected in the typical conversation topics: “impersonal and informal [topics] (i.e. gossiping, complaining, setting up social events, etc), were much more likely to be discussed through IM [Instant Messaging] while those topics which are considered more serious and personal (sharing religious and political views, giving bad news) were discussed less on IM and more in person or over the phone,” as explicated in a Stanford student essay. The lack of depth in instant messages is evident, thus putting in question the validity and substance of a relationship founded or based on this form of communication. These concerns of instant messages are compounded with those raised with text messages, as they are just as relevant.
Aside from instant messaging and chat services, the internet also provides us with opportunities to socialize with networks like Facebook and MySpace. In these virtual worlds, there is not limit to how many friends one has, how vast one’s social association is. But like the nature of instant messages, the substance is questionable at best; having over a thousand ‘Facebook friends’ does not translate into reality and writing on someone’s ‘Wall’ is not comparable to saying ‘Hi’ while passing by on the way to class on campus. According to a New York Times piece, a study of users “found some less-than-social behavior, however. People who use social networks like Facebook or Linkedin are 30 percent less likely to know their neighbors and 26 percent less likely to provide them companionship.” While causation cannot be proved, merely correlation, there remains a slight uneasiness about how social interactions are evolving. Will we learn to accept the casual online drop-in as a sincere personal greeting?
If that is the case, what will happen when the target of uncensored online criticism, courtesy of the man behind his mask of anonymity, takes things too seriously? Because, as Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker,
…things that were once external and subject to the social rules of caution and embarrassment—above all, our interactions with other people—are now easily internalized, made to feel like mere workings of the id left on its own. (I’ve felt this myself, writing anonymously on hockey forums: it is easy to say vile things about Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the N.H.L., with a feeling of glee rather than with a sober sense that what you’re saying should be tempered by a little truth and reflection.) Thus the limitless malice of Internet commenting: it’s not newly unleashed anger but what we all think in the first order, and have always in the past socially restrained if only thanks to the look on the listener’s face—the monstrous music that runs through our minds is now played out loud.
Thus, maybe the set of social skills we possess will naturally adjust according to the path down which modern technology has us racing. Maybe it will soon become an acquired ability to decipher the subtle differences among typed messages and determine exactly which are genuine, which are sensationalized, and which are utter nonsense. However, to reapply Postman’s red-dye concept, it will change everything. The hypothetical addition of this new social skill would not be a simple plus-one process, it would be a rewiring of the human processes of social functioning, removing, adding, and replacing certain components. But some things cannot be eliminated, namely the need to belong. To quench this everlasting thirst, a Baltimore Sun writer discusses:
…just the small daily aspects of life, which lend it savor and tunefulness and chewability. That includes free-form, rambling, open-hearted conversation. Sometimes you find it in bars, sometimes on airliners, sometimes after church, at coffee hour. It is fundamental to a sense of belonging in the world. Basic confidence begins here.
Confidence, amiability, wisdom, charm, clarity, compassion, awareness, poise, presence…all are qualities that most would deem important if not essential social skills. All are traits that can be enhanced by certain social experiences in a lifetime. Most of these influential experiences occur not in a digital or virtual world, but in person in the real world. So until the innate need to belong is entirely satisfied by what the screen of a computer or phone has to offer, until cleverly placed punctuation marks can accurately and fully represent human emotion :), until the definition of social interaction is overhauled to reflect these radical changes, the preservation of fundamental social skills should be a concern for generations to come.
