I’ve been hearing a lot about how things like the web and text messaging are keeping people from “face time” how we are all degenerating into a group of chair-ridden social degenerates who cannot spell, cannot speak, cannot even maintain eye contact in real-life social situations. That our children are going to grow up getting married on WOW and having virtual children rather than going to nightclubs, getting lit on drgs and booze and having unprotected sex like the previous generation was wont to do (if you believe the media, at any rate).

But the one thing people fail to take into account is that a very large percentage of the population is comprised of reasonably balanced people. There are addicts of every stripe, addicts for alcohol, for
sex, for videogames, for pr0n, for chocolate, for heroin, for soap operas, for Twitter, for Harry Potter, in fact, if it makes you feel good, if it makes *anybody* feel good, there’s probably someone out there who’s addicted to it.

But the majority of people, when they realise they have gotten hooked on something that is mucking up their life, they self-regulate. They limit their exposure, they set rules like, no drinking before 5pm, or, no TV on a school day. Sometimes it takes a little mucking about to get the balance right, sometimes you fall off the wagon, but you get up and get back to the balancing act again.

Thing is, social media and digital communication are not so different from any other type of communication. In place of reading facial expressions there are emoticons, hashtags, any number of ways to convey that emotion, and a recently savvy user can pick up on these just as quickly as a smile or a frown.

“But” you may say “but you can use those to lie. To say you are angry or sad with the intent of manipulating your reader.  BAD PEOPLE use those to trick kids into taking naked pictures of themselves and to get dates with people prettier than they are.”

“But” I say back “how us that different from what we do face to face? The false smiles and dishonest chuckles we have all grown up  practising as a part of everyday social graces?  It’s just as possible that the person you are meeting at the bar is actually half a million dollars in debt and has herpes, the fact that you’re meeting him or her face to face doesn’t change the fact that deception happens.”

It’s not such a difference to the experienced user. Someone who does their business online is going to be well versed in these forms of silent communication just like we can look at the misspellings in an email title and know if it’s spam or not.  Someone looking in from the outside, however, is going to see something else, they are going to miss the subtleties of repurposed semicolons and be blinded by the run-on nature of hashtag situationals.

So be tolerant of those who are as of yet unfamiliar with this new and subtler form of communication. Remember that this is a whole new language to them, like dropping a native Chinese speaker into a tribe
that speaks only Farsi. They will adapt, or be miserable, but the world will keep turning, one way or the other.  If you’ve already adapted, keep going.  If you’re two steps behind, you’re going to have to make the decision for yourself, do you *want* to take the plunge or stay dry?