Perceptions
In recent weeks and last night in particular I've had to take the time to stop and think about the nature of the connections we make with other people across the internet. I've decided to publicly share some of my thoughts.
There's an inherent danger in not realizing the special limitations of an on-line relationship, be it friendship or something more, or even a purely business contact, or even animosity. You can never really deal with the person on the other side if your only contact is through the computer interface of the Internet. There's no amount of emoticons and typographical tricks that can substitute for genuine vocal inflections and body language. Part of the problem is that only thing that gets through is what to make a conscious effort to project. It's too easy to be false and play a persona on-line. Even when you try very hard to be as real as possible there's going to be a certain degree role playing that you can never avoid completely. Being face to face with another person strips away so many masks that it can almost be a completely different person you're dealing with, even for someone who tries very hard to be themselves.
One thing we have to keep in mind if we ever meet the people on the other end of the internet connection in person is, no matter how much we feel we know each other from our on-line experiences this is a new person we're dealing with. We may have heard a lot about the other person, and had pretty good introductions made, but we still have to take the time to get to know the new person, and not assume that we really know them because they were the one typing on the keyboard on the other end.
Even now when video capture devices connected to computers are becoming more and more commonplace and you can see a picture of the other person live and in "real time" it's important not to confuse that image with reality. It may be a very appealing image but it's just computer graphics. The real person who posed for that picture is still unknown to you until you can connect to them in person without the long-distance computer interface.
I'm trying hard to sum this up with some kind of pithy comment. I want to make a simple profound statement, but I think I'm going to have to just leave this open for additional dialog. I want to hear what you think about this.
