Switched-On Magazine

Our lives today seem to be broadcasted almost instantaneously; the details of our lives, sometimes significant, most often trivial, are plastered on various websites. If not the details of our lives, the things we would like to communicate across distances both remote and near are transmitted more and more through the Internet, text-messaging, and other rapid means. Even friendships now can be and are are maintained virtually.

How then is it possible still to feel socially isolated amidst the deluge of information created by a wired world?

Something about the connections created between people on the Internet does not always feel real. Face to face with someone, we are exposed to a language beyond words: facial expressions, mannerisms, temperaments. On the Internet, we can try to substitute face to face encounters with web cam exchanges and voice-to-voice chats. Yet with the inconsistent quality of videos transmitted over the Internet (sometimes they are high quality, sometimes they are so grainy you cannot see a person's face), especially in real-time, it is difficult still to attain that sense of connection that is forged between people in a "real life" encounter. Videos can be considered "face-to-face", but is that enough?

Though we, as human beings, already compartmentalize our personalities into different facets (depending on whom we're around), with the technologies of the Internet we can divide how we present ourselves into two distinct areas: the "real life" personality and the "online" personality presented on social networking sites and blogs. Sometimes a disconnect occurs between either. The way we present ourselves online can be completely different from the way we present ourselves in real life. Hiding behind a false sense of anonymity some will do and say things on the Internet that they would otherwise not say.

It is already difficult to get to know a person even if you encounter them everyday. Online, the profile connected to a screename could be entirely made up, details about their lives confabulated. With the deluge of spam robots in emails and on blogs distinguishing between what is real and what is not on the Internet is made even more difficult.

People can lie about themselves in real life; they can pretend to be someone they're not even when confronting someone. But at least in a face-to-face situation you can look beyond what someone is saying or writing to get a sense of who they are.