It’s All Relative

The current issue of Adweek has an article titled: “Stranger Than Fiction.” As the under-35 age group spends an increasing amount of time in the virtual realm, online identities are changing how young people define ‘reality’ and fact is getting blurred with fiction. Here’s a thought-provoking quote from the article: “Digital footprints–ranging from Google links and Facebook friends to Flickr photos and World of Warcraft scores–continue to drive real-world cool, and who you are online increasingly determines who you are in [real] life.”

Hmm, that’s certainly something to think about; can’t say I agree either. But if anything, the blurring of online and offline lives may have some interesting implications on personality and social development, as well as a change in social conventions. Much of who we are is shaped by interpersonal relationships and face-to-face interactions with other people (ie–how peers react to our expressed thoughts/behaviors influence subsequent thoughts and actions.) So what happens when this development is moved to a virtual world where people can’t get immediate feedback? To investigate upon this matter further, I found a case study on teens and their social lives. One teen said: “My best friend, the one I play video games with every night, is going through a really tough time. I need to be there for him ‘cuz he is always there for me.” When asked about where his best friend lives, the boy replied: “Ohio. No, we’ve never “met” – why would I ever go to Ohio?”

There are definitely pros and cons to this changing nature of friendships/relationships. Pros– people can ‘be themselves’ online without fear of rejection by peers and connect with people they might not normally meet in real life (due to geographic constraints, racial/ethnic boundaries, socio-economic divides, etc). As another teen in the study said: “The best friends are internet friends. They’re all so nice.”

True, ‘Reality’ is what your mind makes of the environment around you. The virtual world can be a happy realm for people to indulge in their fantasies (think SecondLife), but ‘virtual’ doesn’t always translate to the ‘actual’ (physical) realm. Thus, this change in the nature of relationships could breed socially awkward people (because people are not always the same online and offline) and also create false sense of ‘bonding’ (since real-time reactions play a huge role in determining the chemistry/bonding between people). Think about the teen whose best friend is in Ohio. Are they really best friends?

Maybe I’m simply too old-school/outdated when it comes to accepting the virtual realm as ‘real’ and haven’t adapted to the blurring lines between the worlds. For instance, I don’t think virtual friends count as real friends until you meet them and develop a connection face-to-face. Communicating through a medium that’s not face-to-face works like a barrier and/or safety net. When you don’t have a face matched to a name, anything goes: you can be as uncensored as you wanna be because there are less consequences to your behavior (no one will know its you!). So back to the Adweek article that got me thinking on all this: not sure if online identities are increasingly determining how people are in real life. It’d be interesting to see a study on whether or not people behave the same way online as they do offline. Perhaps I’ll seek out some folks who are active members of virtual communities and see what they have to say~