I have several good friends that I hang out with normally, people I hold in high esteem and people I trust to provide information and feedback from their world, as well as our shared experience. One of the massive advantage of having good friends is that they tell us when they think we are behaving badly - from a position that they are doing it out of care for us. In my opinion, this is enormously valuable.
With a colleague (and friend for over a decade) today, the discussion led into giving feedback to people and how valuable it can be as a reflection and potential modifier of behavior. As I am interested in the various aspects and risks of our continued separation and disconnection from each other, I mentioned how this could affect us in society, considering that we have not only become more digital in our social arrangement, we have also become more narrow in topics.
Whereas a "traditional" relationship covers many topics and ranges of conditions, a lot of the internet conversation and "peer group" are organized around a particular topic. These topics that are discussed are also often polarized and combative in some way. What this could likely result in is less pushback on poor behavior from "our side" as we are supporting the common argument of "our side". Yes, there can be a lot of negative feedback from the other side, but that can be discarded and discounted, as it is coming from "them", not us.
What I wonder is if we are now lacking the proverbial "slap" from people who's opinion we value, as we have effectively replaced a lot of our social group with topical "Yes-men" who are invested in our side of the argument, regardless of how we behave. No only that, these people don't necessarily know us or have any other information on us, other than around that topic - this means that they not only have very little experience with us in order to reference our behavior against our personality, they also aren't invested in us as people in the same way friends are, meaning that they do not care - as long as we are able to inflict pain on the common enemy, the other side of the argument.
I think this might be why trolling behavior is so supported by people who might not support that same kind of behavior in real life. The screen also removes our need to act or respond to the bad behavior of our digital allies, as it takes away the responsibility, social expectation and allows us to remain passive or ignore, as we are largely anonymous voyeurs of the interaction.
But, not only is there a lack of close people who are able to say "Dude, you are being a dick", there is actually encouragement for poor social behavior, as long as it is in support of that common enemy. Change the topic to something that hits closer to home of the ally, and things shift on a 180 and the recent ally will respond, but now they are on the other side of the argument, so it can be ignored and discarded.
friend (n.)
"one attached to another by feelings of personal regard and preference,"
Friends are personal, but once we move into the digital realm and separate ourselves by topic and identity, this individual personality is lost. Friends are not people who are momentarily in our lives, they are people who have some history with us that extends across topical borders, across times that are good and bad, across emotional boundaries - friendship becomes a shared experience that takes investment and therefore, *holds value. It is because of this that real friends will give their personal opinion of our behavior and because we have invested into them too, we are more likely to listen.
There are many aspects to social interaction that we take for granted or that we are blind to, yet we are changing how we interact and communicate in ways that will affect our behaviors and, our personalities in a given situation. Maybe enduring friendships will become a thing of the past and will be far ore transitory, but I wonder what we would lose in the process.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Can't say anything else than 100% agree. For many of 'us', our digital self may not be our 'real' self. And for most of us, when we are in the digital world we may not even converse with our reallife friends, but acquintances and unknown people to us. This we notice a lot in crypto space. Many of us are totally anonymous, even more increasing the distance of being reallife friends. If we ever can chance all of this, for more and more digital users to behave the same or similar as we behave with our reallife friends, is the big question. I doubt it. Unless, digital becomes the same as reallife in our own way of thinking, but I dont think we are near to such culture change.
I think it depends on what people are like in the real world and how their sense of self. Perhaps the internet allows them to live a fantasy that they can't in the real world - like the people who are google intellectuals.
It is funny how emotional people get on the words of strangers.
Many seem to deny that we are human.
Hmmm, in what circles are you in? When I say things like that in me 'reallife' circles, they call me something like the crazy Ed :)
Is it? That said, I'm used to have great times with 'strangers'. Before Corona times, I spend quite a bit of time at festivals and other places where music is played, entertainment is arranged (sometimes the DIY type), and lots of people around having fun. Many times had the one day, or one night friends at these events. In essence strangers, but for that one day/night, friends with good and sometimes deep and personal conversations. Interestingly, when I meet those one night (ok ok sometimes multi night friends because we see each other at multiple events) friends after not seeing each other for years sometimes even a decade or more, its like old times, and we are experiencing the one night friendship all over again :) Note that we dont share contact dteails, no phone, no email, maybe maybe Facebook, but even on that front I usually dont share those with these one night friends.
Me too - but they also think they are unaffected by all of the entertainment they spend consuming ;)
Nothing wrong with strangers in real life - they are familiar and tangible. It is the arguing with people who for all intents and purposes, may not even exist in the real world - as the AI is likely at the point that most couldn't tell the difference. And people thought the chatbot service was scary...
I have had plenty of these nights - and they are real. Would you have the same connection on Twitter?
Twitter not, but at Facebook, yes, or more or less yes. With some at HIVE as well. How strange. But yea, Twitter totally not :)
BTW, super cool you had the oneday/night friend experience as well. Not so many do, unless one is a millenial in eg a country as Holland were it seems to be standard to go to dance parties every single weekend. Those youngster are at least exposed a lot to these experiences. When I started to go out and about, dancing the night, and hanging around the day after, almost 3 decades ago, everything was in the deep underground. I must say, more day/night friends back then, then today :) Probably because it was all deep underground back then :)
I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s - I have attended the odd rave ;)
In the more recent past, I have been to quite a few salsa events and workshops, where peopel gather from all over the world. It is a lot of fun and can be very random.
Randomization is a massively important part of social skill development, yet people fail to see ho engineered most of the internet is. Who do they think is making those suggestions on the platforms, choosing a handful of feed contents out of the thousands of options each day, selects the next potential match on Tinder? It is all engineered - nothing random about it.
Absolutely! Too many dont realise this, hence so many people start to believe whatever they get pushed in front of them and stay in that tunnel. To me, quite unbelievable the mass is so ignorant.
Have been to a few salsa nights at clubs. Different setup to dance music, usually a room with kinda in between free dancing and demo dancing. Obviously also a room for free dancing, and also a room were one can get a teacher helping you out. Different type of people to dance events, but pretty much the same randomness between the various nights. Very interesting!
Be yourself, online and offline, not sure how people react to one another portraying themselves as one thing, eventually meeting in real life and the person looks and thinks who are you, most definitely not the person I spent hours chatting to online!
Other side of the coin is many cannot "see themselves", the good the bad and the ugly, we tend to draw from those around wearing a different hat or mask without realizing it.
My personal online life is to mix with people whom I would feel comfortable meeting.
@tipu curate
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<not sure how people react to one another portraying themselves as one thing, eventually meeting in real life and the person looks and thinks who are you, most definitely not the person I spent hours chatting to online!
I think the harder thing is - the person portraying themselves as something that they are not have to look in the mirror every day knowing it - unless they are very good at not reflecting. Many of those too now.
I am lucky on Hive, I have met quite a few of the people I interact with and, they have met more again. It is a social network after all :)
Not sure why some reconfigure their persona we all different, some will gel others won't.
Only one other Hiver lives reasonably close, I am sure one day we will meet up when life is more stable again.
Definitely a lot of merit to this one! I enjoy banter so I hope I don't go the other way and just ignore someone online if they disagree with me but I've definitely seen it ignored when I try to engage with someone and go against their beliefs or ideals. I agree though that with an in-person conversation, you can call someone out for their shit and they are forced to respond to you in some way, because walking away is possible but not very common if they are a friend. We need more of that online but it's hard to have, I think.
I don't think everyone "ignores" totally, but they can discount the criticism heavily.
It is rare that good friendships end, even in the face of very difficult conditions and words.
Online is a place where people live a fantasy and start to believe it is their reality.
Rather than not being negative about this, I think I have personally gained more than I have lost. I don't surround myself with yes men. I'm speaking only on my own behalf here but I have been drawn to disagreement online perhaps to a fault. I'm not talking about personal conflicts but debating and questioning ideas countless time where that was futile to begin with.
How good these changes you're describing are is heavily dependent on personality. I enjoy exchanging ideas with people and the world before the Internet was incredibly impoverished compared to what it is like today. I only knew a handful of people to have interesting conversations with. Quite astonishingly, Steem made it possible for those exchanges to even capture financial value. If someone had told me 25 years ago that such a thing were possible, I would've taken that person for a lunatic.
But I agree that you have a valid point in that when you have to put with another person's company continously due to a lack of options, there will be times when you're going to have to tell them they're a dick and vice versa.
I would say, though, that there are plenty of situations between friends where no amount of skill at interpersonal relationships will fix things. For example, when it comes clear that a friend of yours is frequently being a dick in small ways and there are reasons to believe this is because of their own issues (very likely envy), then how are you going to bring that up constructively?
Me too, but everyone would claim this, no matter their actual results. :D
Me either, yet again, everyone would claim this, right?
I wonder what the opportunity cost is, arguing with someone online in futility, or helping someone locally that appreciates it?
25 years later, most of the world still agrees with you ;D
The internet makes it easy to walk away - reality doesn't. If it was so easy to walk away in society, I wonder if we would have ever progressed as a species at all.
Perhaps it is their personality, as a friend, do you mention it, but accept it? Do you walk away if nothing changes? I know one person who is a dick and hasn't got any long-term friends - but is socially capable to make more. He is in his 50s and spends a lot of time with strangers - but often feels lonely. There is something valuable in having people who know you close. Perhaps the hardwiring is an extension of the family wiring to build the intimacy for a community.
I feel that if a friendship is affected because some truths are told, it was not really a friendship. In recent years there has been a proliferation of "cronyism" on the networks. Facebook sold the idea of having a million friends and people bought the idea. I think we can say colleagues, family, co-workers, but friend is something else. I have friends who are from the Chavista government and I don't hesitate to discuss the evils of this government with them. There are moments when the discussions are heated, but I have never felt that our friendship has been damaged by these impasses. I believe that when we want something from other people, when we seek to ingratiate ourselves, we play the game of remaining silent. Friendship has overcome all that. A nice afternoon, @tarazkp
And then they don't seem to realize that they are only seeing a tiny fragment of the feed, specifically selected for them to drive their thinking and emotions.
I think in many cases, the blood of friends is thicker than that of family.
That's how I classify friends. Truly good friends are the ones that can (and do) say "You are being an asshole-knock it off." There aren't very many of them in my life. Not because I don't like other people enough or anything like that. I just only need maybe 10 in that circle and that serves me fine.
I actually do have a couple of on line friends that I can say that to or hear it from. Our relationship is obviously at a different level than stop over for coffee, but with a pretty good depth nonetheless.
I think that where many "go wrong" these days is having a reference group of millions of strangers that they compare themselves against. 10 well chosen is plenty.
There are different types of online relationships too - but in general, they are still pretty narrow windows on each other - so even though valuable, it isn't quite as holistic in value. I have some decent people from Hive too :)
Oh, I agree. Though I've gotten pretty down and dirty with both of them over the years. One is on Hive now (for a couple of months) and the other isn't here at all. I can't imagine that it's permanent but she actually took a real job running the service desk for an on line printer. She's a serious freelancer and a serious hustler that's owned several on line businesses over the years.
It's the same thing as 'being in front of the screen'. You can NEVER fully read body language and acceptance levels if you aren't in the same room...
A lot of the on line social interaction is pretty one dimensional, there is very little context to the conversation. A person cruising a post and see's a remark like
That is all the see, they do not see the context in the statement. Walking down a sidewalk and hearing someone use that phrase, the walker has time to gain some context of the situation friendly banter or fist about to be flying. On line there after several other comments possibly or not being willing to go back on search and see if it was in jest, or what, all they see is a rude statement made by one user to another user. Opinion is formed.
Context is very important, and it is seemingly difficult for people to remember what all is context. After all we have all seen how Media take one line out of a speech or a statement, and twist and turn it into what they want it to be.
Being friends on-line is not an easy road for people to travel mainly do to others not knowing the context of the on line friendship.
Context is important and you are right about the media taking lines out of context. I think this is the main position of the average troll too - to be as uncharitable as possible and add unintended and false context.
You know, after I read this, I am so glad that I am old school.
No machine can replace my friendships, as we have a bond that's for life.
Yes our inner ring is a league of nations, but we share respect, advice, personal problems, jokes, disasters and everything else that life throws at us.
A friend is someone that cares and very right, if one steps out of line they get a "klap" from all of us.
Such is life!
I think that due to the randomness of life, people tend to hangout with more varied people overall - as there is no algorithm suggesting who is worthy.
Exactly. Growing up in a poor cosmopolitan suburb has taught me the value of gaining international friends. We have a tendency to box ourselves into the thought patterns of the communities where we live in, but there is a wide world out there filled with solutions that we will never discover if we avoid "undesirables"
Communities tend to stick to their own and will even go as far as to ban others, or to call them derogatory names in order to protect their own false "pureness"
I talk to all and accept them as totally equal, if not better than myself!
I like this post. The probability of having a good life is probably higher if we spot our mistakes early. I saw in a comment section on youtube how they were passionately arguing whether one of the world´s countries was divided or not. I found that an interesting dynamic.
People will argue over anything - yet don't seem to find the time to go to the gym, cook food or learn how to invest themselves better.
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What kind of people have you been hanging out with online XD I have online friends that I have been friends with for years and I will quite happily tell them when they're being dicks or when I think they're making bad decisions.
they listen about as well as any meatspace friend XD
In fairness though I have watched with disbelief as people have defended people being dicks with the excuse that they've only just discovered whatever it is those people believe is The One and Only Good Right and True That Can Possibly Exist and just want to maake sure everyone else knows about it too and they're just excited etc. but none of them were friends otherwise I would have raked them over hot coals.
though see aforementioned problem XD
What is "authentic" online? With so many actors out there, the only way is to follow consistently. The thing is that when fragmenting across topics, consistency doesn't matter for most, unless they are creating an enduring profile.