Aug 31 2007
Are Cyberspace Relationships Underrated?
This post was inspired by sulz’s post and Root’s post .
Communication is a two-way activity between two or more people. Communication is the method by which people share their ideas, information, opinions and feelings. There are various modes of communication, some of which are used more commonly than others.
Oral communication has long been our main method for communicating with one another. The essence of art is the communication of important ideas and other knowledge through symbolic (non-verbal) languages. But speech and and body language are only a portion of communication.
Communication is the transmission of information (messages) between a sender and a receiver using any of the five senses. And It is estimated that 75% of a person’s day is spent communicating in some way.
Whether you like it or not, cyberspace has become the new frontier in social relationships. People are making friends, colleagues, lovers, and enemies on the Internet. The fervor with which many people have pursued this new social realm is matched by a backlash reaction from the skeptics. Relationships on the Internet aren’t really real, some people say - not like relationships in the real world. Socializing in cyberspace is just a cultural fad, a novelty, a phase that people go through. The critics say it can’t compare to real relationships - and if some people prefer communicating with others via wires and circuits, there must be something wrong with them. They must be addicted. They must fear the challenging intimacy of real relationships.
Relationships
The key word here is “relationships.” Examine the ways by which people communicate, connect, and bond with each other and to compare IPR (in person relationships) and CSR (cyberspace relationships) according to how people connect via the five senses:
- hearing the other
- seeing the other
- touching the other
- smelling the other
- tasting (!) the other
The first sense, hearing involves the basic skill for language, which isn’t necessarily auditory.
The second sense, is sight. In cyberspace gender, race, and whether you are “attractive” or not - are irrelevant. Everyone has an equal voice and is judged by the same standards: ie. their words.
The third sense is touch. Almost anything you can do with someone in cyberspace you could also do with them in-person, simply because they can be sitting side-by-side with you in front of the computer while you do it. However, the reverse isn’t true. Everything you can do with someone in-person can’t be duplicated in cyberspace and that’s a big disadvantage for CSR.
The fourth and fifth senses are smelling and tasting. Smell brings us very close to the other and stirs up powerful emotional reactions. Consider the scent of perfume, hair, clothes, skin.
The sense of taste brings us closer still. It’s the sensation of lovers. One might say that smell and taste are rather “primitive” interpersonal sensations, but both are the cornerstones of deep intimacy - maybe because they are so primitive, so fundamental. On this level of relating, a CSR once again falls flat.
Sensory Integration
However, truth be told, we rarely connect to the other person by one sense alone. At the very least we see and hear simultaneously and during more intimate relating we see, hear, touch, smell, and maybe even taste. The complex and subtle interactions among all that sensory input far exceeds the interpersonal meaning we can extract from any one of them alone. Eyes, ears, skin, noses, and tongues - all interconnected in marvelous ways that science still doesn’t fully understand. Those clusters of sensations make for relationships that are highly robust in emotion and meaning.
Presently in CSR the five senses tend to be dissociated… and that’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the rich interpersonal qualities afforded by the five senses is lost, resulting in human encounters that may run a bit on the stale side. But as Internet technology improves, auditory and visual sensations will be more effectively coordinated with each other.
On the other hand, extracting out vision or voice creates unique ways to interact with others. E-mail and typed chat can be rather fascinating styles of developing a relationship. The sensory limitations can fuel the imagination and lead to creative patterns of communicating that are not found in IPR.
CSR also allow for unique combinations of text, audio, and visual relating that usually are not possible in-person. You want to hear but not see people, read their text and see them but not hear them, or see and hear them but not bother with text? We can do that online - and there will be situations in which presenting some aspects of relating but not others is desirable. Source
Making Friends in Cyberspace
Many attest that CSR relationships are just as “real” as IPR relationships and can be just as fulfilling. The additional dynamic is that in text relationships one participates in the relationship while simultaneously observing oneself in the relationship (”seeing” oneself on screen). Moreover, you don’t have to worry about how you physically look or sound to other people when you say something. And you don’t have to worry about how others look or sound when they say something to you.
What do you think? Is it true that in person relationships are intrinsically superior to relationships in cyberspace? Or might relationships in cyberspace in fact be underrated?
