Posted by
David C. Innes on Wednesday, July 08, 2009 8:18:25 AM
My wife, Jessica, recently posted this question to her Facebook friends
in her "status update" regarding the effect of electronic social
networking on relationships.
Do these constant updates
meaningfully communicate to the people we love, or are they
narcissistic compulsions brought on by an increasingly detached and
disconnected society in which real life is being submerged under a
weighty flow of chat, IM, email, twitter, and other forms of virtual
reality?
Her colleague at the school, Jesse Clements, gave what I thought was a wise response.
As
long as one primarily recognizes the playful superficiality of this
type of discourse and does not mistake it for "meaningful"
communication (as so many teens do), then it is harmless and even
useful. But as I begin to notice kids who think simulating the symptoms
of Tourette's at each other is adequate conversation, I have to wonder
whether Facebook has completely erased any sense of entire personality
that, say, a letter requires one to put forth. Given my virtual
nostalgia for the epistolary age, I am enticed by this new kind of
exchange but find it an inadequate, fragmented reincarnation. Letters
were also vehicles for the creation of persona but at least one needed
to be responsible for that creation and follow up on it. The new format
provides too many opportunities for teens especially to hide behind
broken or borrowed signposts as they do their clothes. When they see
their friends at school, no one demands--it isn't even expected--that
there be a correlation of selves.
Jessica Innes (B.A., Grove City College) teaches humanities at
Grace Christian Academy,
a classical Christian school in Merrick, NY, on Long Island. Jesse
Clements (B.A., New York University) teaches humanities and Latin. Both
have graciously given me permission to post the exchange.