The ongoing debate around social media and computers in general is around whether this is pulling people apart - diminishing the amount of real social interaction - or if it is, in fact, bringing people together by breaking down the barriers of time and space in connecting people with one another.
So far I've always been on the side of the latter group - the Internet and social networks have made it possible to connect with a much larger pool of people and, quite importantly, connect with people of very specific, perhaps off-beat interests. You're no longer bound by the constraints of where you live, your transportation options, or your time zone. None of that matters online, where you can interact on your own terms - time, medium, etc.
But, alas, here comes my experience swaying me to the other side. My one, recent, emotional interaction with an angry emailer. I'm guessing one of the unspoken rules of blogging or journalism or one of those writing related activities is that you're not supposed to write when you're so emotional. Well screw that. You often have the most to say when you're emotional.
I won't go into the details of the interaction, but I will share the possible insight that came out of it. I wonder - in a virtual world in which you don't see someone's face, perhaps don't interact on a personal level, do you start to dehumanize the person at the other end of an [email, blog, message of some sort]? Having not met the person - seen their face, heard their voice - do you perhaps not consider them a true person? Does this, in turn, allow us to deal with little regard with these people?
Maybe I get too emotional. I take a message - not even addressed to me, just delivered to my Inbox - full of angry sentiments as a personal attack on my being. I know I shouldn't. But that's not the real issue here. Because, as my mother often argues against me, the moment I stop crticizing is the moment I stop caring. And we definitely don't need less care in this world.
In the end, things were straightened out with my Angry in Australia character. Because we had a conversation - we heard each other's voices (well, through our writing) and recognized that there was a real human on the other end. it's too bad we had to have that negative interaction to begin with. And I know this is not a unique case and I worry that these moments of dehumanization are continually mixed in with the oh-so-wonderful examples of the power of social media in bringing people together. I think the successes outweigh the failures, the joys outweigh the.. uh.. mini emotional breakdowns, and I still believe in the beneficient power of social media.
