Is the information age changing peoples reactions to potential relationships?

I’m not that old but I agree with you @Ltryptophan ..

To quote Betty White from her SNL Monologue

“Needless to say, we didn’t have Facebook when I was growing up. We had Phonebook, but… you wouldn’t waste an afternoon on it. Facebook just sounds like a drag. In my day, seeing pictures of people’s vacations was considered a punishment. And, when we were kids, we didn’t say we were single. We were just kids! It was weird if you weren’t single! Yes, we had poking… but… it wasn’t something you did on a computer. It was—it was something you did on a hayride. Under a blanket. ”

@mrlaconic…Superb quote!

Yes, the information age is changing everyone. The attention spans for people on Facebook/Match.com in relationship is about six weeks. There is nothing left to the imagination, boredom sets in…and it’s on to the next one you find online.

It is getting as easy to break-up/divorce as to “de-friend” someone. Or rather, technology has made it seem that way.

You can now Google someone and find out every bit of information on them….but most times the poor sod can’t defend himself: “Yes, that is me in that protest photo…but I swear I went to the Tea Party rally just so my grandmother would keep me in her will! Honestly!”

So, basically, yes, the information age has people knowing more about people…but is the information accurate? Is it fair? Does it let you know whether someone is a kind generous person? Does it allow you to know their stories….? Their goodness? Their regrets? No.

You won’t ask the same questions that you would have in 1933…the truth is that by the time one goes out on a first date now…everything has been discovered/uncovered. You are right, you probably put most people through a simulation in your mind before you even ever ask the person out…based on the information you Google.

Is that reality? No, it is not. Googling someone isn’t really meeting someone. And starting and finishing a relationship based on internet information before you even meet in person…is a bit much. Or is it?

In Orwell’s world, it’s perfect, I suppose.

What a shame.

I agree that the “information age” has changed everything, has certainly changed a lot of things but as far as finding out about someone in 1933? There were different ways to find things out, different things to know, things assumed that might not be assumed today… however, even in the “information age,” you can find out all sorts of things about a person and still end up getting skunked. People are what they have always been and they will be honest, deceptive, suckered, in denial and/or driven by their hearts or their minds, however they choose as they have always and ever been. Technology does not necessarily change that. Any tool, any technology can be negative, positive or neutral, depending on how people use it. That’s the way I see it, at least.

Just put me down for one at the Agreement table. I’ll be wearing black with a red tie.

I think talk show television makes it acceptable to ask questions and feel entitled to information that, in 1933, would be extremely rude to ask.

Finding out information about someone online is nothing like meeting them in person in my opinion and I might ask questions online, but I would still ask them in person as well… the face , the feel of a person never lies and you get sooo much more from real interaction than you do on screen….

I am fearful of the ultimate outcome of how “openly” people share very private information. Okay, I’m old-fashioned – but I do think that not only is the info-glut harming potential relationships, it can have disastrous effects on existing relationships.

I was fascinated by a magazine article a few years back where a woman was writing about her obsession with the Facebook postings of her ex-husband’s new wife. She saw photos of many possessions that they had once shared as a couple, and while she acknowledged the unhealthy truth of her obsession, she couldn’t stop looking. I feel exactly the same way.

I completely agree that truth/deception/good/evil happen in “real life” with as much or more frequency as they do in cyberspace. Will we implode under the weight of too much information? Can we ever trust a conversation with a friend or lover when we’ve seen evidence that belies the seeming reality? It’s all a bit much for me, I fear.

I only have one statement to make: could it be that most of the women, back in the 30s, were virgins when they married?

you need the interaction on all levels to learn about them. @Ltryptophan How on earth are you going to “put her through a simulation of what I think the result of a relationship would be in all regards” as you stated.
Why simulate what you CAN do and find out WITH this other person. Sounds like “relationship mastrubation”?
There are so many differences in how a person interacts through a keyboard then the dynamics of a face to face relationship. No alter ego guesswork.
You certainly can gain insight on a person, but the proof is in the pudding!

A simulation of a potential relationship in all regards is a fantasy. If you ever meet the person, you’ll find they are quite different. That is, if you allow yourself to see through your fantasy.

I don’t think there is too much information. Humans were evolved to quickly identify the most important piece of information relating to survival at any point in time. There is overwhelming information in meat space. There is overwhelming information in cyberspace. The process of handling it is still the same.

In order to know our friends and lovers really well, we have to employ skills that it takes a lot people years to build. Some people never get very good relationship skills. Other people behave in ways that are mysterious and unpredictable for those with ungrounded fantasies about who the other person is.

I think that the internet actually makes that harder. There may be a lot of words to make us think we know someone, but most of us, I believe, are not even aware that we gather information about others via other channels than words. Even those who are aware, I believe, miss the import of much of what they perceive.

The internet exacerbates this problem because you think you know something but are completely unaware that so much of what you “know” is actually your fantasy about who the other person is. Your brain is filling in for all that information that you perceived subconsciously, and you don’t even know you are doing it. (You in general, not specific).

I love the Internet! It’s far easier to get to know the person inside before you scan the outside. It’s far easier to become friends with someone and move from there to “best friends” and THEN think about romance.

I met my beloved Vicky on the Internet. If I had met her in real life ( whatever THAT is! ), I would probably never have gotten to know her, yet because I knew her better than I had virtually anyone I had ever dated ( and certainly LOTS better than I had known my first wife! ), I could see through surface appearances to the real human beneath. ( Not that she looks bad at ALL, but she wasn’t my “preferred” physical type. )

I am happier now than I have ever been in my entire life, and it’s mostly because of the Internet! : D

It’s about the people using technology, not technology. I don’t get why people don’t see that. If you are a good person, that comes through your pics and whatever you share or don’t share. It has nothing to do with how many sites you’re plugged into. And if you’re incapable of commitment or communication, all of these websites will only exacerbate that and you’ll be a douchebag regardless. People share what they want to share. If you don’t want to share and want to live in the 1950s and play in the hay, it’s all good, do that but what do other people’s relationships and ways of interacting have to do with you?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir But couldn’t one easily make the argument that a culture saturated in information sharing and gathering technology is much more likely to normalize potentially intrusive levels of monitoring both in the world in general (jobs, school) as well as in social relationships?

Is anyone familiar with the concept of the Panopticon?

@incendiary_dan One could make that argument but do you have proof? In fact, I think that because we’re so easily connected with each other and, especially, globally…we are alerted to the very thing you speak of: the attack on civil liberties through monitoring, etc. And of course I’m familiar with that concept and understand how it plays out in many societal institutions, many of which have nothing to do with Facebook.

@incendiary_dan

The problem with your suggestion is that it assumes that “normalizing” will happen, essentially, only at the tech level. Something normalized to that degree would tend to both transform our idea of privacy and practically return it to what it was.

The panopticon requires a degree of control and shame. Ubiquity of information and exposure at all times may very well tend towards a democratization of power in that we all know what another person is doing.

It also tends to reduce the effect of information on us. Seeing the crazy and stupid stuff everyone does reduces any shame we feel about our own idiocy.

Finally, if it’s out there about everyone, finding it about anyone particular becomes more and more work.

@iamthemob The problem with your suggestion is that it assumes that “normalizing” will happen, essentially, only at the tech level. Something normalized to that degree would tend to both transform our idea of privacy and practically return it to what it was.

In fact, that is the very thing I was saying. I don’t know where you could see that I suggest it only occurs at the technological level, particularly since I specifically state that one can make the argument that it occurs at a relational level.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir In fact, there are a lot of psychological studies that show these sorts of changes, particularly since the advent of personal computers and the internets. I’ll see if I can dig up some of the sources when I get home (at work now). My guess right now is that a lot of them are mentioned in the book Welcome to the Machine by Derrick Jensen. Luckily, he tends to have damn good bibliographies in his book.

I agree with the potential for information sharing to be democratic, but we have to ask is that the majority of how it effects us? Considering that, despite freedom to get information from many sources, people still mostly get it from corporate manufactured news sources, I choose not to have any definitive opinion about that at this time. All I’m willing to venture to say is that at best, it’s a mixed bag.

@incendiary_dan Many of the psych studies around how the internet is literally changing our brains haven’t convinced me – they’re sensationalist, at best.

@incendiary_dan – I was wondering – I got flipped because you referenced the panopticon.

Why did you reference that?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir As someone who studied both anthropology and psychology for five years, I respectfully disagree. Granted, a good half or so of them are shit, just childish correlational studies without substance or depth. But much of that other half are substantial and provide valuable insight to the changes in social relationships. It’s basically impossible for a ubiquitous piece of technology not to change the culture. What that change is, well, that’s up to study, ain’t it?

@iamthemob I think it’s an interesting subject and way to consider surveillance culture. The idea behind the original Panopticon, as I understand it, is that people become self-monitoring because they don’t know whether or not they’re being watched, just that they could be watched. In a sense, you can broaden that idea out to point to patriarchal monotheistic religions, where you’re supposed to behave because the big dude in the sky is watching. Anyway, I think it’s worth considering our culture from that lens once in awhile.

@incendiary_dan Good studies are hard to come by and I know there have been changes in social relationships. I was talking about studies that speak about brains changing as bs, not studies about relationships. Of course, those are always changing and studies would reflect that. But there’s no need to have that whole ‘oh the good old days’ disorder again. People lo-oove that. I actually read somewhere yesterday that it’s a sign (evolutionarily speaking) of maladjustment on behalf of our minds that makes us look back and think ‘times were better then’.

@incendiary_dan – People get it the way they do because that’s the way it’s been done for a while, and we’re just tapping into a lot of the community possibilities of the internet (way to late, of course, considering it should have happened sooner).

But as the hardware is more available, I’m fairly certain we’ll see more open source/crowdsourcing journalism.