An interesting thing happened today. My long-time friend from Norway arrived in Japan for my upcoming wedding and, despite knowing this person for over seven years, we’ve never actually met in person. That is … until today. While some might find it odd that someone I’ve only spoken to online would be invited to my wedding, and others might think it just as odd for this same person to make the long flight from Norway to Japan, the fact that she’s done it only goes to show that friendship is not something that needs to be nurtured through real-life activities.
Yuni (which is not her real name), and I have been talking on IRC since 2001. Over the years we’ve shared triumphs, defeats, miserable moments and incredible highs. Despite the distances between us, ranging from just over 100 km when we were both living in Ontario, to over 10,000 km when we were living on two different contienents, we’ve always been close friends. So it should come as no surprise that she and I could get along just great in person, just as we could online … but it does.
Are We Wired More for Communication Than Reality?
It would have been unthinkable to consider someone whom we’ve only corresponded with in a disconnected fashion a close friend more than half a century ago, so why has it changed? Pen pals have existed as long as written language and some type of postal service, but somehow I doubt that these distant people would have been invited to a wedding, much less come from half-a-world away to attend. Yet with the advent of the internet, this is happening more and more all the time.
Reiko and I had a long-distance relationship for almost two years before I made the trek from Canada to Japan. At first, we actually found it more difficult to communicate in person than online, even though we had met in our countries quite often over the years we were “seeing each other” online. This, of course, became less of a problem as the weeks went on, but it nonetheless makes me wonder if the human brain is more wired for ethereal communication than it is real communication.
Or perhaps it’s just me.
I often joke and say that I live on the internet. This was certainly an apt thing to say during my bachelor years in Canada. I would often spend at least six hours a day on the internet, communicating through IRC, MSN (if I had to) or through a game such as Age of Empires. Over time, I learned to immerse myself into the online realm and see online persona’s as though they were real people. Sure, there would often be fake people … guys pretending to be girls for attention, people complaining about some tragic event that never actually happened … but we see this just as often in real life situations. Just like reality, we learn to spot these fake people from afar and keep our distance. Like the old mantra says: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
But with so many people slipping into their own little online worlds, becoming the very person they want to be seen as, are we seeing the emergence of a society where our geographical locations no longer matter? Are we seeing the emergence of a very real global society, where we can make real friends (and foes) from afar, and trust them just as much as the person who we grew up with?
The Fading Line
In my mind, there is no difference between a person I talk to online and a person I talk to at work. Sure, the communication medium is a little different, but aside from this, we’re still sharing information and receiving lots of subtext.
With face to face communication, we receive cues from a person’s facial expressions and body language. Online, we can see these same cues in the type of language used, the number or type of emoticons, and the general structure of the sentences. Regardless of whether we’re across the planet, or across the table, these little signals are things that we learn and identify the more we talk to someone. On top of this, most of us are sharing our pictures online, so we have a face to attach to a nickname or internet handle.
Regardless of whether this picture is real or not, it goes a long way to making someone a little more human in our mind’s eye … which is all that really matters when we’re seeking out a conversation or sense of belonging.
But is this a good thing?
This is a subject I’ve tried writing about on several occasions and have often failed miserably. Heck, this post here isn’t even worth hitting the “Publish” button over, but I’d like to get some opinions.
Yuni and I met at the Nagoya Airport, and it felt like I hadn’t seen her in 2 days … which is accurate because I was talking to her online only two days before. My other friends had landed 36 hours before her and, despite not seeing them since July of last year, I hadn’t realized the amount of time because I had spoken to them before they boarded the plane. The same is said for any one of my friends and family. I can literally go years without seeing them, thanks to the ease of the internet.
People all over the world are now using internet on cell phones … communicating with others while en route to school, work, or wherever they need to go that day. Social networks are still booming, with many people under 25 belonging to several networks and building incredibly rich and interconnected personal networks (which could do wonders for a person entering the work force, or looking for opportunities in other parts of the world). Every aspect of our lives is becoming far more connected, and far more shared. It’s reached the point where many of us could be exiled on that island Tom Hanks was stuck on in Castaway and, so long as we had a stable internet connection, we wouldn’t even realize that we’re no longer living in a populated part of the world.
In the next ten years, we’ll have technologies that will enable us to remain connected throughout the day, with micro-displays embedded into our glasses, or manufactured into contact lenses. We’ll be able to transmit our thoughts to portable machines that will then transmit those same ideas to the ever-growing mesh that is the internet. As we continue to adapt and leverage these tools, many of us will stop working individually and start working cooperatively. A company could hire one human, and gain the knowledge and experience of seven, eight, or tens of thousands!
An exciting time indeed.
What are your thoughts on this ever-blurring line between the online world and reality? Should clear separations continue to remain? Do distinctions no longer matter?
It’ll be interesting to see what the future has in store for the ever-communicative human race.
The wedding is done, and we’re now starting to get our new house in order. Yesterday morning we were fortunate enough to have NTT activate our phone line, Joshin deliver our TV and washing machine, and Apita deliver our (slightly damaged) dining room table. However, there is something still missing …
It’s not quite life-blogging, nor live-blogging, but this post is being published at the very moment that Reiko and I are exchanging vows at Nagoya-ko, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. If you would have told me five years ago that I’d be marrying someone like my Reiko, in Japan, with some of my friends and family here to witness the event, I would have laughed and asked you what drugs you were on. However, here we are today, Reiko and I are (officially, not just legally) husband and wife.
It’s hard to believe how fast time flies. It seems like just the other day when I was sitting at my desk in Vancouver, looking out the window, and wondering what the next year would bring. Now, here it is, already the end of April.
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