Speaking Out on Nate

Yes, there is an age component in this, I have had to learn the hard way how to talk to people face to face and I will be the first to tell you that I am not even the most skilled person I know at this.  Which means that if I am not that good at talking to people imagine how bad this current generation looks to me?  Why did I have to learn this skill, because when I was growing up there was no instant communication.  I am pretty sure that in another generation or two a balance will be found and communication skills will be valued again.  I hope that the world takes the word FRIEND back from Facebook and puts it back where it belongs in the hands of people who know that being a friend is more than clicking a virtual button.

Being a friend is work.  Hard, deitydamn hard work.  Not without a lot of ups and downs.  There will times when you don’t speak to your friends because you are mad, but you will speak later.  Problems will get worked out, not ignored and allowed to fester like an open wound.  You will be there for them and they will be there for you and it will never be an even equation.  This will be okay, because being a friend is not about maintaining a balance sheet.  It is about a lot more.

Being a friend means accepting another person for their flaws.  Not their good points, that is easy, but accepting another person inspite or more importantly BECAUSE of their flaws.  Not calling it quits on the first disagreement.  Being a friend means that their will be disagreements and that is okay because that is just another perspective on an issue that you were lucky to get.  Instead of seeing a disagreement as a point of contention, consider yourself lucky that you were able to see an issue from another side.  I’m not saying that you have to agree with them, but I am saying that the more angles that you can see anything from the more complete your view will be and the better you can talk about or approach the subject.  Being a friend does have it’s own shorthand, but you don’t get it until after years of contact and physical face to face contact.  The shorthand is a history of shared events that allow you to talk to them with a glance or a phrase that has more meaning behind it than if you spoke for hours.  This is a shorthand that has meaning and depth.  It is not the shorthand of IDK, LOL, LMAO, and the hundreds of other language killing inspid creations by those who are only thinking of character count and not actual communcation with another human being.  Friendship something you have to earn.  You have to maintain a friendship.

What else is there?

Ending a friendship is more than clicking another virtual button.  Ending a friendship should involve some pain.  Friends are not kept, just because.  Facebook thrives because people are lazy.  How many “friends” do you have on Facebook that you have never interacted with and/or have them blocked?  When I say interact with, I am not limiting interaction to Facebook only, you can have Facebook friends that you never talk to on Facebook, but have a lot of contact within the real world.  So how many friends do you have that you never interact with?  Yet, they are on your friends list.  Are they really your friends or are they just a number; an inflated number that makes you look and maybe even feel more popular and better about yourself?  Think about it.  So why do you keep them on your friends list?  Is it because you fear hurting them?  Is it because you were defriended and it hurt you?  GET OVER IT.  It is a button that you click.  It is a virtual connection that you cut.  If they or you really were friends you would do something about it well before the thought even of “why are you on my friend’s list” occurred.  Oh, wait that is right almost everyone I have talked to never looks at their friends list, they just add and add and add and add.

1800 words later, and here is my final thought-brush up on those communication skills, talk to your friends face to face, make the time, make the effort and you will be rewarded.

I told you I thought that this subject probably wasn’t done with and it isn’t.  Over the past week or two I have been dealing with or listening to other people who have been having to deal with a form of social interaction which was not available to me when I was growing up and thus the problems inherent to this form of social interaction are foreign to me.  Answer the following: What is harder typing-writing or talking to another person face to face?  Related to that, where does talking on the phone fit into that question?

We text, we type, we write at one another all of the time more than we actually talk to each other.  When we do talk there is a shorthand that is starting to develop.  Not the shorthand that long term friends and family have developed after years of communication, but of cutting off what another person is in the process of saying to get your response in.  I see this all of the time.  I know part of this is from texting.  You text immediately to what is in front of you, even as the other person is doing the same thing.  A goal of texting is to get your response sent back fast enough that your response is not pushed to the bottom of the screen.  This “works” with a typing-texting medium, you can respond to tiny chunks of information and since you don’t have to react to facial expressions you can “say” what you want.

In an abstract this could be considered a pure form of communication, if and only if humans ceased speaking to each other.  However, humans do speak to each other and humans learn that words are only one level of communication.  Tone, body language, and context all play a role in a how a message is sent and received (thank you Paul ZubE).  All of these lessons about communication come into play in the online world, even if we aren’t aware of it.  Since you cannot see who is typing to you, your brain is inserting all that it knows about communicating with that person into how you translate the message in front of you and in the absence of that kind of information your brain makes assumptions based upon the general rules of communication that you have learned.  Thus you will read the words and put a tone, a context and a body language behind the words giving them an additional level of meaning.  Even online words are not just words.  Nobody types pure words or at least nobody receives words as they were typed.  You read a sentence and you make, without knowning, many assumptions which flavor how you interpret the words in front of you. Which is why so many communication errors occur online; they typed “this” and you interpreted “that.”  If you had been standing or sitting in front of them you would’ve gotten the message correct right off the bat.

I see a problem developing, where a generation is very tech savvy, but interpersonal skill lacking. They are not getting enough exposure to other people.  They are not being forced to learn those very valuable interpersonal skills that are necessary to communicate effectively, that have to be learned through trial and error.  Mistakes have to be made and sometimes those communication mistakes hurt, but that is how you learn.   But why learn them when you can text, type or write to another person.  You don’t have to see their reaction to what you have written.  You can say “what you want” or “what is on your mind” or “the truth as you see it” and not have to watch their face for the parade of emotions that would cross it if you were to say that to them.  You don’t have to see the results of your mistakes.  If you have a disagreement instead of having to work out the problem you can ignore it.  Don’t return texts or emails.  Ignore it long enough and maybe all will be well because they and you forgot it.  After all nobody remembers what is written down “that” long, not like the spoken word.

This form of communication may work for a while for people, but it doesn’t solve anything.  Arguments that are never resolved only fester and the topics of the fight always come back.  Always.  Why, because there was no closure.  Closure for human beings seems to be something that has to, in part, be done face to face.  That means face to face.  Now, I admit I may be in the minority, but everytime I have had to work out a problem face to face it is done then and there.  It does not get mentioned again.  It is worked out no matter how hard or difficult it is.  With online arguments, they never seem to end.  Days, weeks and even months later people still bring up shit that has not nor will not be resolved because they refuse to meet with me face to face.  I understand, face to face communication is hard especially when you are laking in skill.

I can talk my way around anyone that is 10 or more years yonger than me.  They just don’t have the necessary verbal skills.  This was not always the case.  Everyone who is 10 or more years younger than me can, without a doubt, out speed text me, but since I don’t play the speed text game it doesn’t work for them.  I don’t mind getting buried under two hours of non-stop texting and then reading it all at once AND then forming my response.  My response will not be one or two sentences at a time, but full paragraphs, I care not for character limits or the conventions of what I consider an inferior form of communication.  I can wait for your fingers to get tired.  I also know that nothing will get accomplished on my or your end.  Sure you “vented,” you “got your say,” but did you?  What happens when you bump into me face to face.  You will have to speak with me.  You can’t pull out your phone and start texting to me while I am standing there, for one I WILL slap the phone out of your hand and for another I am patient I can wait for you to stutter, stammer and umm your way through what will be one of the most awkward conversations of your life.  I will then tear you a new asshole or two without raising my voice because I have verbal skills.  In the end, I will have closure. Our issues will be worked out.

“I haven’t thought about it.”  That was the response my pondering about how much longer would social networks keep the current level of privacy filters in place.  Something to think about is that the current levels are in place because each time they are changed or talked about changing people take action.  However, even with action taking place the privacy filters continue to change.  With this in mind as companies and governments scour the internet looking for information, how much longer is it until those companies and governments begin to put pressure on social networks to make the information more accessible to them?

Not saying it is happening now or will happen at all, but as it has been shown the borders between work and home have already been eroded.  As it stands the generation I am dealing with A.) hasn’t noticed the erosion, B.) doesn’t think about the ramifications of what they have already lost, C.) maybe actually participating in the erosion of their rights, the ones many of us are horrified are already gone and finally D.) may not even care that they are handing away freedoms that we have been used to.

These freedoms that allow an individual to speak out without having to look over their real or virtual shoulder to see who is taking note of what they are doing.  It was, at one point in my life, acceptable and expected that a person would do stupid stuff.  I believe it used to be called growning up.  As part of growing up you would do something or in most cases several somethings that were stupid.  You didn’t have to worry about whether your stupid action would come back to bite you in the ass, so you go out drink and take photos.  You didn’t have to worry about a company rooting through the sewers of the internet to find them.  You may have some explaining to do to friends, family and future children, but that was life, it was growing up.

Now there is a thought about having to teach (educate) children in grade school about paying closer attention to what they do as kids online.  There is definitely a movement to trying to get college students to behave better, but it seems to be only in words.  Much like banging on about the dangers of plagarism.   So what happened to being a kid, growing up and having the space to do stupid stuff?

Please pass this whole conversation along if you feel so inclined.  I still want to hear from the under 30 crowd in addition to the over 30 crowd.  I am getting the feeling that this is a bigger topic.