The Impersonal Nature of Interpersonal Cyberspace Relationships
I couldn't get to sleep tonight. Something kept turning in my head. For the last year and a half, I have spent considerable time at this keyboard. Particapating in virtual support groups. Reading thousands of notes from discussion groups devoted to topics relating to psychology and virtual communities. And writing about how valuable it is to feel connected to so many others that share similar interests. Some things happened this week to conspire and caused me to realize the true nature and effect of what is missing in this medium. We don't really know each other, because we don't tend to share the kind of information that brings people close and fosters a sense of community. Even in the virtual groups where that is part of the stated purpose for participation.
by Storm A. King
05/95What happened is that one person died, one person got very angry at me, and another shared about meeting a lover for the first time whom they had come to know over the Net. All on different email lists. As I tell these three stories, think about what you know and do not know about the people you have met here.
Mr. Gerald M. Phillips, among his many other accomplishments, was a regular contributor to a list I am on. This list is devoted to discussions of the interpersonal nature of cyberspace communication, and has over a thousand subscribers. When he died this week, what I knew about him was based on my reading the near daily notes that he posted to this group over the last year and a half. As the tributes to him came pouring in, my impression of this man was filled in. I learned about who he truly was for the first time. People wrote about how he had helped them, about how he had been a friend and a mentor. They spoke of his goals and ideas and accomplishments in a way that made me realize that I had in fact barley know this person at all. I knew his ideas, and a bare minimum of his situation. Since this list is not an emotional support group, it is quite appropriate that I had known no more than I did. But, having been given this new insight into the personal nature of someone whom had been an influence so many lives, including mine, it caused me to reconsider the insight I think I have with others whom I share cyberspaces that are designed to be support groups. And to contemplate what it is I use to feel close to someone here.
Telling this next story is a bit tricky. I want to talk about something that went on in a private, closed group, in a way that I can share with that group and others. The nearly 200 people on this list value the privacy of it and often post notes that are very self disclosing. An incident occurred last fall. One of the members of the group was in trouble, and this caused great stress and anxiety among the other members, who tried their best to help. As someone doing research into and writing about the value of such support groups, I saw this as an example that could be used to explain to others the nature and depth of the interpersonal bonds that form in such cyberspace groups. I wrote an article, and shared it with the group. There was a misunderstanding regarding permission to tell this story in the way I did. The member who had been at the focus of this incident became very upset with me. The group sharing was disrupted, and emotions ran very high. I concluded I had made a mistake, and agreed not to try to publish that article. This person and I are net.friends again, because we care about and respect each other. This all had several effects on me. One was to sharpen my awareness of the ethics involved in writing about what goes on in virtual communities. That is a whole separate subject I am looking into. The other effect was to make me realize that it is too easy to think that I know someone here because I have read a lot of notes they post.
It is all the small details that are missing. Cyberspace relationships are truncated versions of real life ones. The exchanges are short, and the awareness of others true nature is illusionary. Even in the closest of groups, the notes posted represent such a small fraction of the person writing that intimacy and interpersonal bonding occur only if someone unilaterally chooses it. Behind everyone of the notes I read daily from even my best net.friends, there is a life, filled with houses and cars and wives and kids and jobs, of which I am mostly completely unaware.
One more illustration. One of the lists I am on is an open list, but the subject matter is very personal. I have met in person a half dozen of the approximately 100 people on this list, and feel very close to all the rest that post regularly. Last night, a member told the story of what happened when he traveled across the country to meet, in person for the first time, a lady he had fallen in love with by email. In an 8k message to the group , he talked about his trip and his hopes and anxieties and fears. The little details were there. A traffic jam on the way, the color of the night, a light in her window. I could feel it all because it was concrete, not just the ideas and emotions, but the context and situation they occurred in too. I realized that what fosters insight, produces emotional attachment and promotes the sense of community in virtual environments is the completeness of the picture in my head of the other people here. Not just how they feel about the important issues we share in common, but what the world looks like from their eyes.
The media continues to hype the Internet for all its worth. Membership in commercial interactive services is at an all time high and rising ever faster. What are all these millions of people doing here? Asking inane questions? Lots. Having meaningless chat sessions where the underling attraction is to try to flirt? Yes. Sifting through an unimaginable piles of information, organized in a random fashion? Indeed. Arguing and yelling and calling each other names? This happens a lot in some forums. Falling madly in love? This happens way more than anyone I know has been able to account for so far. And forming lasting, important friendships, based on interpersonal bonds that are mostly illusions. Yet, somehow, for so many, the cold impersonal presence of the words and the ideas expressed on a computer screen are being translated into emotional connections and exciting adventures into long distant relationships. When real lives touch each others, things change. What makes it real is the connection to the real life behind the ideas. As expressed in the little details. The picture of others, complete in its context, form and colors. The knowledge that the other has grandkids, drives a certain kind of car, likes a particular type of breakfast cereal.
Well, it is after 5 AM, and the muse that wouldn't let me sleep is leaving. I plan to post this to groups where the purpose is not one of fostering intimacy or exchanging emotional support, but, as a bit of an experiment, allow me to share some details here and you decide if you agree with this assesment.
I live in an one bedroom apartment on the second floor. I just stepped out on the balcony to stretch and get some fresh air. Even without my contacts in, I can see that the sky has a few clouds, just turning pink. The birds have started their pre-dawn chirping. It is still in the room, except for the sound of the exhaust fan on my computer, sitting on my big wrap around desk, and the tapping of these keys. My desk is it's normal mess. Organized piles of half sorted papers, notes to myself, and yesterdays mail strewn on top of that. I am alone, because my wife has been working out of town for a few months now. I do not like kicking around this apartment by myself, but the new shag carpet feels good under my bare feet when I end up pacing and thinking like I did tonight. The second cup of strong coffee since midnight got cold before it was half gone some time ago, but I drank it anyway. I have no doubts that the struggle to write this and the lack of sleep well seem well worth it later, for my fascination with and attempts to explain interpersonal computer intimacy is a big creative outlet in my life. I hope it help others. Now, to take a hot shower and sleep a bit. I have to drive an hour to be at my mom's at noon for a get together.
Created and maintained by Storm A. King
last updated 01/2006