When you spend as much time as I do on Twitter—the very embodiment of the social Internet experience, or Web 2.0—you start to see complaints about people who share too much personal information. Some people know they’re sharing too much and even hashtag #TMI. But what is too much? And why do people complain? Well, some people are attention whores, and they share what most people would keep private in the hopes of evoking a response and getting people to talk to them; they’re needy, quite likely even co-dependent. In this post, I’m going to do what I always do: ignore them. I want to talk about something deeper.
It seems to me that people wear their avatars as masks. They feel that they don’t really know the people they’re talking with, that those people are simply personae, also wearing masks, and so they feel comfortable sharing information online that they wouldn’t in “real life”. Well, welcome to the 21st Century, people. This complex network of machinery we call the Internet is, like it or not, the way we communicate these days. It’s a barrier that breaks down barriers, and it’s changing the way we interact. It’s been around for over a decade and a half, and we still haven’t adapted to it. We’re still playing by the old rules. It’s time to toss the rules out the window.
We’re social creatures, bred to view situations on a personally interactive level, to act and react as though physical harm and emotional harm could be meted out at any second. This is easiest to do when we’re in physical proximity to a person, but guess what? The same consequences exist online. You can be ostracized and shunned over a computer network just as easily as you can in the so-called real world. You can be blocked, de-friended, filtered as spam, and ignored. You can offend people online, just as you can IRL.
The way I see it then, one of two things needs to happen. Either we need to keep up the social nicety of keeping our personal information to ourselves, or we need to adapt and realize that the Internet, contrary to the predictions of dehumanization and impersonalization, is breaking down the barriers and allowing us to interact on a deeper, more meaningful level than ever before and be willing to embrace this meaningful interaction, embrace our fellow human beings on an intimate level that we have hitherto tried to hide.
Why have we hidden it for so long anyway? Fear of being shunned, of being cast out of the social group, is my guess. Fear, plain and simple. But that’s only because we know people don’t want to hear it. And why don’t they? Also fear. When you know someone intimately, there’s the chance that they may hurt you, intentionally or unintentionally, because you’ve invested emotional energy in their well-being. Fear is our greatest enemy, and it’s time to let it go. Slay the demon. Embrace this new world with the full knowledge that you may hurt and be hurt. That’s life. It’s always been that way, and it will continue to be that way, but by allowing ourselves to embrace this new form of social interaction, we can usher in a new era, for by embracing the Other, we embrace Self, and by getting to know others intimately, we sympathize and empathize. When we do this, we realize that our differences are fewer than our similarities.
It is often our differences that separate us. Communities in their earliest forms, and at their fundamental level today, are based on differences. It’s “us” (who share similar qualities, values, beliefs, etc.) and “them” (who are different). By recognizing similarity, we bring everyone into the fold, and it is only “us”; there is no “them”.
I haven’t been a big fan of the Internet for some time; I’ve been one of those people who lives by the rhetoric that it dehumanizes individuals and impersonalizes interaction, one of those people who says Internet friends can’t be “real” friends. But as I’ve connected with people online, I’ve changed my tune. Sure, many of my interactions online are merely superficial, but it’s the same offline. Cyberspace mirrors physical space. It’s time for us all to realize this, to embrace this shift in social paradigm—indeed, to be active participants in this shift.
Let us embrace the new world that the Internet has the potential to allow us to create. Let us create this world. Let us open ourselves to intimacy both online and offline. Let us see each other as reflections of ourselves, embrace each other as we would family and friends. Let us realize that we are one people, one global community. Let us revolutionize our world, our society, our very existence. We have the tools; all we need is the will.
Will you remain a member of the old guard? Will you succumb to fear and continue viewing the world as Us vs. Them? Will you help maintain the status quo of violence, war, hatred, poverty, and other ills? Or will you conquer the fear, allow yourself to see others for who they truly are, invite them into your life, foster love and understanding, reach out to them, aid them in their troubles? Will you not only embrace this change but actively bring it about?
Do you possess the will to join Revolution 2.0?
