I’ve had a few discussions lately with people about the perceived differences between the online world and the “real” one.
I have an issue with the distinction, really.
The mechanisms may be virtual, but with some exceptions, the people at the other end of the keyboards are not. They’re very real. We are still alive and breathing, sitting at our computers typing stuff like this or tweeting or talking on Skype. The context is different, the tools are technological, but the humans are every bit as real as they’ve ever been.
You can debate the depth of the relationships you forge via online media all you like. You can also debate the role that the nature of that connection has in that relationship, and whether it helps or hurts. But that doesn’t make the relationship any less real. It just makes it dependent on different context.
Anyway, I’m digressing a little so I can tell you this story.
I was traveling alone yesterday, dining by myself at the hotel bar. I chatted amiably here and there with the bartender, exchanged a few pleasantries with the other strangers at the bar who sat near me, glanced up at the baseball score once in a while. I had a magazine with me that I flipped through, and occasionally I hopped on my phone to exchange some text messages or tweet or write down a blog post idea or something for the business.
As he was leaving, one gentleman decided he’d give me a bit of advice.
“You’re going to wear out that phone,” he said with a smile, friendly enough, but slightly admonishing in a fatherly kind of way. “You should really keep your head and attention here in the real world!”
Aside from the annoying thing that is unsolicited advice (which is another post), it’s prompted me to take a stand on something. Your mileage will vary, of course, because I’m not you. You do what works for you. But here’s my take on all of this, and the concept of needing to “be present” wherever you are physically simply because you’re there.
Perhaps I actually wish I was elsewhere in that moment. Maybe the people who are very much real in my life — and most important to me in the moment — can’t be with me right now. Perhaps they’re having a struggle of their own, and I wish I could be with them. Perhaps I just miss them.
Perhaps where I am isn’t somewhere I want to be. Perhaps I’m alone, and feeling that way. Maybe I’m making my moment  less lonely with the company of the familiar instead of the unknown, with friends and conversations that I can connect to remotely, because that’s what *I* need.
Perhaps my “presence” is enhanced for me by adding other more distant friends to the mix to include them in my experience, sharing my surroundings, laughing about the crazy guy at the bar next to me, catching them up on my day. Maybe some of them wish they could be here with me, and I’m bridging the gap of distance by sharing with them a little of where I am right now.
Perhaps my anxiety is too much for me right now, and I don’t really feel like interacting with someone I don’t know just because they happen to be here.
Perhaps distance doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you. I don’t think someone in my physical proximity has more intrinsic value than someone sitting on their couch or at their desk over an internet connection. How terrible would that be if our worth as a person were only dictated by our location and circumstance? If we were only relevant where we were in that moment?
Perhaps your world view isn’t mine. Like I said, digital for me isn’t “not real”. It’s just different context, with different degrees of connection. Our relationships have always been on a spectrum, from superficial to intimate. But is a Facebook message from my brother or a text from my dad any less grounded in reality simply because they aren’t physically present and because I’m using a new medium to connect to them? Does it matter if that’s a quick hello or an important family matter that needs attention?
What if I read a book at the coffee shop, doodled in my journal, knitted a scarf instead of using some kind of device? Sat in silence, or watched the baseball game above the bar with intensity? What would your perception of my level of presence be then? Is analog really so much more meaningful than something else?
What if I’m writing a groundbreaking novel on my iPad? Skype chatting with my daughter while I travel on business to hear about her newly lost tooth? Working on a paper that will get me funding for cancer research? Emailing my 90-year old grandmother because I know she’s lonely sometimes, and she loves to get email?
Who are you to determine what makes me present, and where, and how?
Unless my behavior is showing disrespect or rudeness to you directly, I’m not sure why it should matter to you what I’m doing. I’d never be tapping away at my phone if we were having dinner together, because that’s basic manners. But if I’m by myself, I’m the one that gets to decide what “being present” means to me.
It seems to be trendy somehow to dismiss the online world as one that’s devoid of substance, and to criticize those who have chosen to spend personal and professional time on the internet.
I find that horribly presumptuous, not to mention hypocritical in the silliest of ways. We want the technology when it suits our purposes, when it makes us look good, when it enables us or empowers us or befits us. But we’d also like to tell other people how they should be using it, what’s valuable and what’s not, what constitutes a substantive use of time online and what’s a waste.
It’s not up to you. And as far as you’re concerned, it’s not up to me either.
The internet itself is inert. It’s nothing more than a bunch of potential uses, sitting in wait for us to activate them.
It takes us to actually make meaning – or a lack thereof – out of what we find here. And the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. Technology is not ancillary to our lives anymore, it is integral to them. How you choose to embrace that is up to you, but I’ve decided how and where the web enhances my life
So please, if you see me working in a bar or at a restaurant and I’ve got my headphones in or I’m tweeting on my phone, by all means say hello. Comment on the weather. Ask me about the shirt I’m wearing. Strike up a conversation if you like and if you’re that sort of person.
But the way I use my phone or my computer or my iPad is my own, and when I’m the only one affected, doing so doesn’t make me less present, it just makes me present in a different way, on different terms, in a different context. It’s every bit as real to me.
The beauty of these tools is that they really are what we make of them, in our own way.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Skype call to make.
Thanks for this Amber 🙂 As someone who grew up with her closest friends hundreds of miles away, the digital world and “living” in it means a lot to me. It is quite real, and one of the only means I had as a kid to reach out to people who understood and appreciated me for who I was. #thanksinterwebs
Thanks so much for sharing that perspective, Nasreen. That’s exactly the kind of example that drives this point home for me.
Another great post, Amber. I find that many people are quick to cast judgements on digital relationships or engagement, especially if it’s an activity that they don’t engage in. My friends who don’t participate in “social” don’t understand how some of my closest relationships started with people I met online.
Our world is getting smaller, we’re fewer degrees of separation away from each other than ever and my children won’t understand the concept of a pen pal all thanks to social technology.
I’d love to hear how you responded to the comment.
I simply smiled and said “thanks for your input”. There wasn’t any point in saying much else. Unfortunately, I hear similar comments often, or “don’t work too hard” when I’m in a coffee shop working or something. People’s perceptions are an interesting thing, and just like you said, if they don’t share the context themselves, people tend to judge based on their impressions rather than their experience.
“All puffed up with vanity, we see what we want to see.
To the beautiful and the wise the mirror always lies.”
We really do tend to observe that which we are conditioned to see, and your stranger was likely viewing you through the prism of his own experience (and possible failures.) If it makes you feel any better, his “advice” to you was more of a self-admonishment than a directive to you.
Society is being dragged into an interconnected world faster than it can uniformly absorb that change. Some, closer to the center of gravity, are drawn faster, while those at the fringes have yet to feel the tug and wonder why others are flying away from them. (“You” are flying away from “them,” because the fixed frame of reference is always the individual experience.)
Would that the rest of us caught up with the relative dance of the planets. It would make the retrograde more comprehensible. 😉
Oh I don’t need to “feel better”, really. I get this stuff all the time. What surprises me more is when it comes from very digitally connected people online, as if their way is the only way to filter these things. It happens, but like you said, we’re being dragged into that world whether we like it or not. As a general life rule, it would do us *all* well to remember that our experiences and perspectives aren’t the only ones out there.
We met on Twitter. Wrote a book together. End of case study.
You once told me, years ago, when I interviewed you for my Twitter20 series, that you cherish social media because “your relationships are no longer dictated by geography, or by circumstance.” One of the most profound statements, ever, and I continue to quote you in just about every presentation I give. The way I see it, you’re just continuing to live that creed.
The bits and bytes of digital relationships can be incredibly compelling, and offer succor and comfort in all kinds of situations. (I’m right there with you when traveling too. I bring an iphone to dinner when I’m on the road by myself, not a book).
But, when you are the outside looking in, it can be frightening and weird and frustrating that people are having an actual life, in real-time, right in front of your eyes, yet they aren’t really “there” in terms of our classical definition of attention.
As a parent of a teen and a pre-teen, I can tell you that my hypocrisy level with regard to social media and mobile device usage is headed off the charts. I need and want to do it all the time, but when they do it all the time, it drives me crazy.
Just wait for Google Glass…
“But, when you are the outside looking in, it can be frightening and weird and frustrating that people are having an actual life, in real-time, right in front of your eyes, yet they aren’t really “there” in terms of our classical definition of attention.”
That’s it right there. Re: the hypocrisy, the challenge is that we want to choose when and how we engage online, but we demand that others make *their* choice based on our desire to be *disconnected* in that moment. That dissonance isn’t going to get any easier, that’s for sure. We have to learn to balance, and to craft a new set of understandings and etiquette and ways of communicating our presence and attention that we haven’t needed to before. It’s a massive sociological shift, not just a technological one.
While I don’t advocate for giving other people unsolicited advice (it’s at best bad form and in its worst incarnation, extremely rude), I will say that I can sometimes see where he is coming from. Not that this is a problem for you, Amber, but there are a number of people I know who are so plugged in all the time that they virtually never interact with the people around them, even when those people are friends or family.
There’s a balance to be found between the endless pictures of cats, the updating of statuses on Facebook and Twitter, and participating in the physical world around you. It’s a balance that allows me to enjoy an online presence while not missing out on the things that require me to focus on the real-life world around me.
Like the other commenters, I’ve made some very valuable friendships online and I use online tools like Facebook to stay connected with people I don’t see frequently. But if I let myself sink into that world and not come out to look around me, I miss important things in the “real” world as well.
Mardee, you’re actually illustrating my point right here.
Those are all *your* patterns and tolerances and the things you feel comfortable with. But why do they have to be mine? Whether or not I interact with the people around me, even if they’re friends or family, is *my* issue to deal with, not someone else’s to arbitrate.
Your balance isn’t mine isn’t someone else’s, and the point is to keep THAT perspective, that each of our experiences is different and our context is varied, and judging what’s right for someone else based on our individual lens isn’t going to work when these technologies make for such a spectrum of applications.
Good post Amber. I have a love hate relationship with social media. I love it when I find something good like your essay. I hate it when I have to get out of the way of some weiners on the sidewalk heading straight for me as said weiners are texting in earnest, blinded by themselves.
That’s not social media’s fault. That’s THEIR fault for being oblivious. They could just as easily be reading a magazine while walking down the sidewalk, or staring into space. So the issue is a human one, not innate to the tech.
Amen, Amber. In many ways, digital communication is how I keep in touch with those I most value, including family members and friends across the world. Some of my closest relationships began online and continue through various tools and technology. Just because I use email or Skype or Twitter to communicate, doesn’t mean those connections are any less valuable.
I frequently use my phone to reach out to those around me when I’m feeling a need for company. Is a phone call any more or less valid than an email exchange? A Direct Message conversation on Twitter? A Google Hangout? Not to me. It’s not about the tools or technology, but about the connection itself.
I was just having a conversation with some folks on Twitter yesterday about social media and whether it makes us more social or less and what that means for in person communication as opposed to “virtual” communication. My thoughts on being present: I like social media for making/maintaining connections, but friends/family deserve my undivided attention in person. Like you said, that’s just basic etiquette.
If you want to get really philosophical about it, even etiquette is a matter of perspective. Someone, somewhere might get all bent out of shape if I use the wrong damned fork at dinner. Our sense of propriety is shaped very much by the people around us.
Like Ike said above, the issue is the clash between our personal world view and someone else’s when they differ dramatically. That divide will always exist to some degree, I just wish people would pick their heads up once in a while and realize that there are more ways to approach life than their own.
Good point.
I remember someone saying something similar to me several years ago. Like you, I was travelling a lot and I was writing my first book at the same time. In the evenings would spend my time sitting at the bar with my laptop writing until the thoughts stopped flowing. I can’t count how many people said, “Don’t you ever stop working?” or “Isn’t it time to stop working?”
I was thoroughly enjoying my time and didn’t need to interact with others. I liked the noise and atmosphere of the bar and was highly productive because I wasn’t “working”…I was writing.
Great thought-provoking post as always!
Kelley, I’ll never quite understand what motivates someone to make that judgment from a distance much less voice it. I’m rather fascinated by what we feel comfortable commenting on re: other people’s behavior, and what we’re not.
Luv Luv Luv this. Where living in an era of what i call the Technology Paradox, we alone decide how it best suits our needs at work in business or in our family lives. The work-life merge is on, but technology is not the demon.
Nope. It’s just the mechanism. It’s our behaviors that are at root of all of it, and we’re still feeling out a really big shift in those. Uncomfortable to say the least!
I can appreciate this and I thank you for sharing it!
Welcome. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for opening the dialogue, Amber.
Let me preface the following by simply saying: to each his own. As another commenter said, we all come at things from our own experience and our own unique perspective. When I’m traveling alone, my i-things are my companions. But when I’m with others, I’ve learned in the past two or three years that I’m missing SO MUCH if I’m not interacting with them and being present in that moment.
I recently saw a picture fly by on Twitter that a colleague took that had a lot of “social media famous” people all together at a restaurant. And – you guessed it – they were all hunched over their phones. Not learning from one another. Not looking each other in the eye and being in that moment, but instead they were tied to the beast that made them famous in the first place.
We live in the heads-down generation. And I feel like while the internet gives us so much – it also can take so much away from us. I’ve made a conscious decision to keep my phone in my pocket or across the room or even in my car when I go places now – even by myself. And you know what? I’m thinking more. I’m more creative. I have better ideas. I’m more observant. In a rat-race world, I (again, personally) feel like all social media does is accelerate things. And I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want things accelerated. I want the opposite.
And yes, I get the irony of talking about this on a blog. But c’est la vie.
Thanks for sharing.
I’m very much like you, Spike. I need disconnected time, cherish intimate moments with friends and family spent in conversation, my notebook and my pen. But you said it: to each their own.
I’m not trying to advocate that MY way is the right way, either. The point is that when we observe others, especially when it comes to how they choose to use the internet and the technology, it would be nice if we could remember that it’s all “real” according to someone, and that it’s perfectly reasonable that someone should choose to do things differently.
I’ve been at those dinners too. Once. You know what? I don’t go to dinner with those people anymore, because I don’t enjoy spending time with them and get nothing out of the experience. Problem solved. 🙂
So how did you respond to the gentleman in the bar?
I simply said “thank you for your input” and smiled.
So how did you respond to the gentleman in the bar?
There were quite a few articles reflecting on the phenomena caused by ‘2nd Life’ when it got increasingly popular and people began to ponder the blurring demarcation between our real selves and our avatars using Linden money. And nowadays no one frowns when talking/using Bitcoins. What is your take on the possible impact that Google Glass will have on our ‘presence’ once the gadget becomes accessible/available as well as affordable to all? Better still, with all the rage with disruptive technologies like 3D/4D printing, sooner than we think there can be such ‘G-Glass’ as a virtual screen of beams from our smartphones to take us to other worlds where we can be perceived as ‘present’… What used to be sci-fi has largely become realities like it or not. But, are we happier?
And once upon a time the phone became all-consuming for someone, too.
The issue is that technology only fills and exploits gaps that already exist in our psyche. Happiness isn’t a product of what tech we have or don’t, nor is tech the enemy.
*We* are responsible for our happiness. Accountable for how and where we spend our time. It’s always been that way.
We won’t stop progress and we won’t prevent the advent of things that can damage us. Perhaps it’s time that we took some responsibility for our choices instead.
Whether it’s Twitter or Google Glass or   the telegraph, they’re just new mechanisms with raw potential. What we do – or don’t – do with that is up to us.
“… and when I am the only one affected” in your closing paragraph is a key expression here to me. But when we are together in groups and our presence (however we individually define and act on that) does potentially affect others, we are going to need to make our thoughts transparent (as you did so articulately here) and discuss how we agree to engage with each other. Otherwise, we are left to projecting our own experiences and filters as this gentleman did unto you.
Appreciate your hard work on this..
Whew. I’ve been reading alot lately about writing for people. People are still the ones making the decisions and purchases. People are still the ones creating the digital world. People are still what matters the most.