Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Virtual Reality
Something else that's come up is the tricky line between the internet and reality. I don't really see much of a line, and if I've met you then you're almost certainly in my mind as "firstname" rather than "username", and in my phone memory too, for that matter.
Somewhere along the way, I think I missed out on the normal friends business. I rarely socialise with colleagues since I moved house - lycra cycling shorts and jersey do create certain dress code difficulties with your average high street drinking venue. I've got friends I see at football from week to week or month to month, I've got friends I see at gigs every few months, and I've got friends I see on the internet most days (and in person at varying intervals). And friends I do other stuff with too.
Given this compartmentalisation, it's maybe not the biggest surprise that I don't see my lovely internet friends - and that's you, dear reader - in any way differently to how I see all my other various friends.
I just wish I'd realised before everything got a bit mixed up that even if it doesn't really for me, such a line must exist for others. So there's a question - what is friendship for you, and does it differ much according to the medium?
* Yeah, I know there was a post that disappeared. It occurred to me that it struck a tone that was remarkably zeitgeistig, but widely open to misinterpretation, and in an especially not helpful way.
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As promised earlier.
1 - male v female views on friendship.
I think women are less likely to categorise friends according to what they currently associate that friend with. I, personally, will more likely categorise the friends according to how I first knew them (so uni friends etc) but they can cross-over between different groups quite easily. I also think that anyone who is solely associated with just one purpose who I only see for that purpose - and there is a large group elsewhere on the internet I would view in that way - is more a "friendly acquaintance", which brings me onto
2 - grades of friends
Or maybe stages. For me, and for others that I know, friendship is more likely to be categorised by how big a deal the friendship is - there are a number of ranks from friendly acquaintance to the friends you hope will be there forever. The speed at which people move up through the ranks varies and, in my case at least, if anyone tries to move up too quickly they are met with a knockback pretty sharply. Which leads to -
3 Attitudes to friendship
It's always assumed that it is something that everyone should want, from wherever it is offered. Because, what sort of person would reject an offer of friendship? But why should friendships be different to any other relationship? And sometimes the expectations that two people have from a friendship differ
4 - internet friendships
These are funny beasts. Douglas Coupland has interesting and positive things to say on the matter which I won't go into here. I think that they develop in a different way from other types of friendship because of the communication medium, unless you happen to meet regularly with said internet friends. It's always said that only a small percentage of communication is the words - the majority being tone of voice and body language - both missing on the internet. Additionally, it's very easy to self edit and be very selective about who you present to the world, and what information you give away. But on the other hand, the anonymity of sitting at a machine means that you can give away rather more than you would be inclined to when there is a face in front of you. And you don't always get the feedback about what people think about what you have said because the visual/verbal clues just aren't there. So, it's a lot harder to work out where internet friendships stand.
I shall expand on this already lengthy tract on my own blog later - I have much to say on the matter.
1 - male v female views on friendship.
I think women are less likely to categorise friends according to what they currently associate that friend with. I, personally, will more likely categorise the friends according to how I first knew them (so uni friends etc) but they can cross-over between different groups quite easily. I also think that anyone who is solely associated with just one purpose who I only see for that purpose - and there is a large group elsewhere on the internet I would view in that way - is more a "friendly acquaintance", which brings me onto
2 - grades of friends
Or maybe stages. For me, and for others that I know, friendship is more likely to be categorised by how big a deal the friendship is - there are a number of ranks from friendly acquaintance to the friends you hope will be there forever. The speed at which people move up through the ranks varies and, in my case at least, if anyone tries to move up too quickly they are met with a knockback pretty sharply. Which leads to -
3 Attitudes to friendship
It's always assumed that it is something that everyone should want, from wherever it is offered. Because, what sort of person would reject an offer of friendship? But why should friendships be different to any other relationship? And sometimes the expectations that two people have from a friendship differ
4 - internet friendships
These are funny beasts. Douglas Coupland has interesting and positive things to say on the matter which I won't go into here. I think that they develop in a different way from other types of friendship because of the communication medium, unless you happen to meet regularly with said internet friends. It's always said that only a small percentage of communication is the words - the majority being tone of voice and body language - both missing on the internet. Additionally, it's very easy to self edit and be very selective about who you present to the world, and what information you give away. But on the other hand, the anonymity of sitting at a machine means that you can give away rather more than you would be inclined to when there is a face in front of you. And you don't always get the feedback about what people think about what you have said because the visual/verbal clues just aren't there. So, it's a lot harder to work out where internet friendships stand.
I shall expand on this already lengthy tract on my own blog later - I have much to say on the matter.
Thanks for your thoughts.
The friendly acquaintance thing I would largely agree with, with one major exception.
On grades/stages I'd say it's more or less a binary situation for me. You're my friend or you're not. But we come back to that same exception.
And on what comes through from the anonymity of the keyboard, I'd mostly say the same thing: I'd prefer to be judged on what I say, because it really is what I mean, than on a subjective interpretation of my body language and the look on my face, which may but often does not say what I mean.
But then we come back to that one exception. It's practically inevitable that the prism of my TV-ism skews relationships, of all meaningful kinds.
Sure there are casual acquaintances who know of the fact, but there's a group of people who know a lot more detail, and who have been, to a woman, fantastic, in ways I struggle to begin to quantify.
And there's a degree of intimacy implicit in sharing any of that detail. Or rather, there's a degree of intimacy in how I see those people based on that.
Which is where things have got a bit mixed up in the recent past. Just because something is so hugely important to me, it's not necessarily the case that anyone else picks that up in quite that way. In fact, it would be a surprise if anyone did.
I just wish I'd worked that out sooner, and at a lesser cost.
The friendly acquaintance thing I would largely agree with, with one major exception.
On grades/stages I'd say it's more or less a binary situation for me. You're my friend or you're not. But we come back to that same exception.
And on what comes through from the anonymity of the keyboard, I'd mostly say the same thing: I'd prefer to be judged on what I say, because it really is what I mean, than on a subjective interpretation of my body language and the look on my face, which may but often does not say what I mean.
But then we come back to that one exception. It's practically inevitable that the prism of my TV-ism skews relationships, of all meaningful kinds.
Sure there are casual acquaintances who know of the fact, but there's a group of people who know a lot more detail, and who have been, to a woman, fantastic, in ways I struggle to begin to quantify.
And there's a degree of intimacy implicit in sharing any of that detail. Or rather, there's a degree of intimacy in how I see those people based on that.
Which is where things have got a bit mixed up in the recent past. Just because something is so hugely important to me, it's not necessarily the case that anyone else picks that up in quite that way. In fact, it would be a surprise if anyone did.
I just wish I'd worked that out sooner, and at a lesser cost.
I think the sparkly place does actually make it an exception for many of the people there. So there's not really a place for it among the friendly acquaintances - there's too much contact between people for that and too much trust placed in others for it to be that sort of distant thing. And things are discussed there that you would never discuss with the very casual friendly acquaintance. And it's natural that closer friendships form within the group, as they do in any group of friends.
One of the things I was trying to put across about communicating by computer, without any tone of voice etc, is that the absence of tone means that the recipient can still make a subjective interpretation of what is said - eg may think that you are being hard on them over something, when the comment was simply a silly little prod which wasn't meant harshly in any way - you get what I'm saying here?
So, it's incredibly important to look out for how people are reacting to what is said. And here I am partly thinking of someone who used to be around a lot and needed a lot of support, but simply did not register for a long time that the support she was recieving was not the support she had expected. And then disappeared when she did realise it.
Anyway, where's that link to my blog you were going to do?
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One of the things I was trying to put across about communicating by computer, without any tone of voice etc, is that the absence of tone means that the recipient can still make a subjective interpretation of what is said - eg may think that you are being hard on them over something, when the comment was simply a silly little prod which wasn't meant harshly in any way - you get what I'm saying here?
So, it's incredibly important to look out for how people are reacting to what is said. And here I am partly thinking of someone who used to be around a lot and needed a lot of support, but simply did not register for a long time that the support she was recieving was not the support she had expected. And then disappeared when she did realise it.
Anyway, where's that link to my blog you were going to do?
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