The real world is a composition of the different perceptions human beings develop over time through physical interactions with their surroundings. Real life offers encounters that are not restrained, opening up the freedom to create whatever we choose, given what the universe has to offer. On the flip side of the spectrum lies the virtual world, encompassing all social, political and economic relationships that are created and share in an artificially created space: the Internet.
Technology enables human beings to create virtual communities based on shared interests, values and activities. However, wired life is not real — technology, specifically social media, builds experiences with the purpose of mirroring and augmenting real-life experiences. A text message is a wonderful and innovative means of communication, but it lacks the nuance of body language, facial expressions and emotional content. By its very virtue of being artificial, a great deal is lost in translation. According to Forbes, “only 7 percent of communication is based on the verbal word.” This implies an astounding 93 percent of communication that exists is established on various nonverbal cues like voice texture, body language, eye contact and anticipated emotion.
My argument debunks the idea of “digital dualism” that makes us view the physical and real worlds as distinct. The virtual and real world we live in today are increasingly interlinked, both influencing each other different ways. There are several theories that aim to identify the relationship between our real and virtual worlds. Cyborgologist Nathan Jurgenson argues human engagement with online existence through information and communication technologies is part of the historical relationship we humans have always shared with technology. In pre-electronic times, architecture and language could be thought of as symbols of technology. Today, it is interesting to see how the real world is being impacted by virtual existence or the very truth that social media presence affects human behavior even when they are offline.
According to Cyborg Anthropologist Amber Case, there exists “a second-self” that is activated each time someone interacts with you on the digital forum. When we appear online, people are engaging with our second self, which acts on behalf of our physical presence. We are bound by the rationale to present an idealized version of ourselves in our digital life, which may be similar or different from how we would present ourselves in our analog life. Maintaining a credible status of this second-self becomes a significant for the coexistence between the real and virtual worlds. Adolescents today actually are made to go through two unique stages of pubescence — first, their primary one, and second, the pubescence of their second-self, which happens to be slightly more awkward because the Internet documents a record of their online history over time.
Another effect of the integration between real and virtual worlds is the idea of ambient intimacy. This concept asserts that individuals can be connected to people with level of intimacy that they wouldn’t ordinarily have access to because of time and space constraints of the real world. To enhance the credibility of their second-self, people find comfort around the same group of people, who try to compete for their attention. A survey conducted by Anthropologist Prof. Robin Dubar illustrated that Facebook users “considered just 28 percent of their list to be to be genuine, or close, friends, and said they would turn to just four in a crisis.” The shift of focus from the individual self to external factors builds resistance and makes us prone to constantly seeking approval. We undermine the importance of self-alignment and sentence ourselves to a life of surface-level relationships in which we simply act by default. British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield suggests “the fixed quality of technology may inhibit the development of creativity which is, by its very nature, open and undefined.” Only in the absence of any external input can we introspect and delve more into who we really are. Once that is figured, we can figure out how to present our second self in an authentic way.
Thinking about countless meaningless virtual relationships can potentially spur an existential crisis. As humans, we use the virtual world to connect with each other all the time. It important to consciously recognize that the most useful technology gets out of the way and helps us increase our humanness in the real world. The problem arises when the virtual space is allowed to undermine the significance of real human relationships. We need to realize that it is our digital world that’s stitched into the fabric of the real world we are all part of — not the other way around.
Srivats Modi is a Viewpoint writer.
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