internet conversations
Jul. 1st, 2004 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensWent to the pub with a mate of mine from teacher's training yesterevening. It was fun. I had too much to drink, so talked a lot. We talked about what it is to teach, how we view our lives and what it is to talk over the internet. It was the first time I could talk with someone who was so genuinely interested in what I do and why I do it. It wasn't a dismissing of these communities as not real, but a try to unveil the differences. Of course the big difference is that all these nice ladies on my friendslist (yes only ladies there, maybe I should do something about that...) don't have a face for me, or a voice. I can only "read" you guys and maybe this will mean that I will never be able to know you like I know my RL friends and acquaintances.
My mate is convinced she would miss the face-to-face interaction, that she'll always want to know what there is behind the words, just to be sure it isn't something superficial. I would lie if I'm saying now that I do not wish to meet some of my internet friends in person, but on the other hand I'm not convinced. Internet is a piece of my world that has its own state of being -- its own ontology as it were. For me it's sometimes this fantasy world. It's the place where I use a different language than in everyday life. It's my window on a world that involves so much more than what I see without my computer, but what I see behind that window is my own making.
I don't chat (maybe I will one day, but I don't really feel the urge for it) and I think because of that posting gets an air of mystery for me. Will I get a reply? Whom will I get a reply from? What will it say? I might as well believe it's computer generated. The computer takes some time to calculate the response and after a while it appears. Is it believable when I say that chatting brings you closer to the other, typing away at his or her computer, while over here the distance stays? There is something wrong with my metaphore, but I don't feel like it to actually make it work.
I must say that if my sister would go and live somewhere far away and we would only be able to communicate through this medium I definately would miss her voice and the face-to-face-interaction. Internet doesn't let you sit in silence. When you don't "talk", you aren't there. There's the big difference I guess. If I don't post, I might as well be dead. It's also what appeals to me. I can walk out of here without leaving a trace of where I went and I will have barged into other's lives, changing their memories, but they cannot retrace the source of these memories. There is no proof. There are only figments of splinters of words on screens and Frances -- as an entity -- will be gone. It's the bestest way to go.
My mate is convinced she would miss the face-to-face interaction, that she'll always want to know what there is behind the words, just to be sure it isn't something superficial. I would lie if I'm saying now that I do not wish to meet some of my internet friends in person, but on the other hand I'm not convinced. Internet is a piece of my world that has its own state of being -- its own ontology as it were. For me it's sometimes this fantasy world. It's the place where I use a different language than in everyday life. It's my window on a world that involves so much more than what I see without my computer, but what I see behind that window is my own making.
I don't chat (maybe I will one day, but I don't really feel the urge for it) and I think because of that posting gets an air of mystery for me. Will I get a reply? Whom will I get a reply from? What will it say? I might as well believe it's computer generated. The computer takes some time to calculate the response and after a while it appears. Is it believable when I say that chatting brings you closer to the other, typing away at his or her computer, while over here the distance stays? There is something wrong with my metaphore, but I don't feel like it to actually make it work.
I must say that if my sister would go and live somewhere far away and we would only be able to communicate through this medium I definately would miss her voice and the face-to-face-interaction. Internet doesn't let you sit in silence. When you don't "talk", you aren't there. There's the big difference I guess. If I don't post, I might as well be dead. It's also what appeals to me. I can walk out of here without leaving a trace of where I went and I will have barged into other's lives, changing their memories, but they cannot retrace the source of these memories. There is no proof. There are only figments of splinters of words on screens and Frances -- as an entity -- will be gone. It's the bestest way to go.
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Date: 2004-07-01 01:54 pm (UTC)I don't chat either. I've discovered a new found love for lj and I still visit ASSB and Caritas, It's sometimes hard for people who don't have conversations with 'thin air', to understand people that do.
Those of us that do though , eventually, I think, become intuitive about what our on-line friends have posted, we do get nuances, after a time, because we do know the people we talk to.
It is lovely to meet on-line friends , especially when you discover they're just as they are on-line ;)
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Date: 2004-07-01 02:07 pm (UTC)It is true you start to know people on LJ. And yes, this is my "new-found love" and the occasional postings on the C&S (simply for some of the non LJ peeps there).
The thing you say about not understanding people that blog, when you don't blog yourself is something that comes up a lot in social studies. The bf is very interested in blog research, so I get a lot of info on it and it seeps into my brain. Point is a lot of blogging academics are fed up with non-blogging peeps trying to do research about it. What these peeps write never describes to bloggers what they actually do. To understand a community you must become part of it. Antropological research in the blogosphere. :-)
Sometimes I see this as writing to my penfriend. I had a penfriend when I was a teenager and we met up a couple of time and yes, she was just as crazy as in her letters. We started emailing a couple of years later, until RL ate up our time.
She actually is responsible for me liking to go to Sheffield... (Shh, don't tell Ez...)