Apparently, there is a woman in Oregon who is testing what it’s like to talk to people ONLY using social media (Twitter, Facebook, Skype, etc) for a month (article is here). She lives in a storefront so everyone can see her, and has vowed to communicate solely by social media until December 1st.
The article then goes on to talk about how the writer gets frustrated because he can’t reach most people by phone call or office visits anymore, but instead can get instant Twitter and text message responses. In my opinion, he really seems to be whining a little bit. Being upset because people can shoot off an email faster than they can hunt you down, hope you’re in your office, then walk back to their own seems kinda selfish to me. An email isn’t that great an interruption on someone’s time, and they can easily transition back into what they’re doing. For me to go visit someone, it involves me changing location, on the way there my mind will wander, I’ll have that conversation, prolly get sidetracked by random conversation and waste time, then get back to what I was doing. By then, my brain is somewhere else entirely. For the sake of my own productivity, I’d prefer to just send an email. It’s not that I don’t care about you, it’s that I’m worried I’ll never get anything done if I go see everyone for everything.
It may be sad, but it’s true: Time really is becoming one of the most valuable gifts you can give to someone. For me, in-person conversation is a luxury item now, and it’s something to be enjoyed. If I see someone in person, I want to stay a while, I want to chat. Sadly, I don’t always have the time to do this as a graduate student taking 12 hours, doing the homework for those courses, learning a language, hosting a podcast, and having a job.
Back to what the woman is doing. The main reason she’s doing this is because she saw the effect that communicating by social media was having. She was simultaneously cutting off part of herself from people while still communicating with them, and wanted to explore that more. I agree with her completely that yes, even Skype is missing something in talking to people. My sarcasm is often lost on instant message, and Twitter is lacking in enough space to make many good jokes. People also get an entirely different view of me based on what social network they see me on: on Twitter, I have no idea what people think of me. Prolly random and scatterbrained. On Facebook, people see more of the real me; they definitely get more comedy and awesome shared links from The Onion, etc.
Social media can be frustrating to me, even while it gives me such great opportunities. When I talk to my significant other on Skype, I want to be able to hug them – to be there physically even more. Years ago, I’d be lucky to see their face. I heard a story that Bill Gates and his wife while they were dating long distance would each go see the same movie locally, then get on a pay phone and talk to each other about the movie. That was a date. Now, for my dates, we get on Skype, start a movie at the same time, and watch it together while talking on Skype. It’s the closest we can get to a cute night in. Trust me, I am no where near whining about getting the opportunity to talk to him, but perhaps I really am a little spoiled to still want more. Even today, many people can’t do something like that. I’m thrilled just to see him, but when I see him, I still wish I could be there in person. So much communication is lost.
So where do I stand on what this woman’s point is? I love online communication, I do. I’ve been using it since 6th grade, and in a lot of cases I prefer it. I’m pretty shy, so talking online gives me a bit of relief from that anxiety. I see its use in terms of productivity, and it did raise my typing speed a hell of a lot 
But some conversations just need that personal touch. Having time be that much more valuable in some cases can be a good thing: when I talk to my sig. other online, he knows exactly how much he means to me because I take the time out almost every night to talk to him for an hour or two face to face. It’s made me value my time with him that much more, and reminds me of how much he means to me that I look forward to just talking to him digitally. Even though I want to see him in person a lot more than I get to, I wouldn’t dare leave my social media behind or call it bad, because it’s better than not having it at all.
5 Comments
At the moment, in my situation, I would give an arm and a leg to actually be able to communicate with my significant other via social media. Unfortunateky, that is not an option available to us.
While the number of emails in a work environment drive me insane and I often thing a 3 minutes phone call would have been much more cost effective than 25 emails, there is little we can do – times are changing.
I think that the way of communication is changing. People now use twitter, facebook, or others to communicate. Some people still need time to accept that fact. Just like many years ago, when people started using telephone, it might take time to accept that mail would be substituted.
I will begin a conversation with a friend via text message because it’s easier and allows for more space and time to consider my responses, but there is something always lost in subtext. I have had fights over what was read between the lines of text, and because of that frustration I have changed my behaviors to always, always call if the conversation is important or needs to be communicated clearly.
The thing I’ve been thinking about later is how I tweet. What kind of information about myself am I conveying via twitter? Who is reading my tweets? How much should I self-monitor my conversations? I started twitter without much of a filter, tweeting without a care as to who read what I wrote, but I realize now I was naive. I still like to joke around or say inane things only I think are funny, but I know there are eyes out there, judging my twitter personality. I think that is a major concern for all forms of online exchange: how do we “sound” to the recipient?
I have a friend who told be about how she knew a couple that only had fights via instant messenger. They never fought in person. To me I find this completely ridiculous because I think, especially in a fight where emotions are high, there is even more room for hurt feelings, unresolved problems, and misinterpretations through instant message, which as you say is one of the reasons why some people might interpret you differently via different forms of social media.
WOW, missnesbitpro, that is really strange. I cannot imagine fighting using IM. I’d be interested to know, if they were co-habiting, did they sit beside each other on computers in the same room and do this? Or did they take laptops into separate rooms? The mind boggles at the logisitics of such a strategy!