How do you feel regarding "face life" vs. "virtual life"?

Virtual life is great.. but pales miserably in comparison to “face life”. I’m still of the persuasion that a good old fashioned handshake is worth more than a flobbety-gillion emails.

I also feel gypped (from gypsy) if I have to watch on the big monitor. See, you learned how to insult a group of people correctly. I bet you don’t feel disablingly smart now.

@steve6: Why did you clarify the racist origins of your words?

I’m cool either way. Nothing beats a good book but I’ve found friends just as dear to me in my online life as I have in real life.

I was just helping him with his spelling and breaking his…

Try reading the overly long question in its entirety.

Cat got your tongue?

I think for some people, talking on the Internet probably takes a little of the ‘stage fright’ aspect out of what could occur in face to face interaction and possibly stimulates them to be a little more daring or open in their communication. I’ve felt this way sometimes but I believe there could be more merit in actually being in the presence of someone while communicating. I think it has the potential to be more genuine and honest for the most part.

Fluther can be a good example of why my reasoning wouldn’t always be foolproof though. I’ve met all kinds of wonderful people here and so many of them are exceptionally well spoken and intelligent in the ‘virtual life’ and even though I’ll probably never meet any of them, I would imagine them to be the same in ‘face life’ also. I feel uncomfortable assessing someone’s social skills only by how they represent themselves online. That seems rash and ill-advised to me anyway.

I’m 42, by the way.

No, I had better things to do than sit here waiting for your response.
Just so happens I skimmed too fast this time, lose the attitude.

i read face lift, haha. i might get one one day!

People lacked social skills long before the internet came around. Only then, they didn’t have any alternatives.

I think it’s fascinating the way the internet has evolved the ability to convey some of the subtleties of language through internet slang, creative punctuation, and emoticons, and that speaks to the solidity of our roots as social creatures.

Nikipedia said what I was going to point out, that people had bad social skills long before the internet. The internet has allowed me to keep in touch with old friends that I otherwise would never talk to. In tons of ways it has greatly improved my communication and communication skills, not hurt them.

I have no problem with eBooks, especially with things like the Kindle and other eBook readers. For a textbook they’d allow you to search for keywords, making research easier. I read books for the information they contain, not just because of the medium of dead trees or the way they smell.

If I paid to go to a concert then yes, I would want to see them live and not on a screen.

Online relationships feel similar to having a pen pal relationship. Writing letters is a great way to communicate, because you have to learn to express yourself better verbally. Writing enables you to get a whole thought out without interruption, and to think as you write. Often in real life, you get interrupted, lose your train of thought, or speak before you think. I love the ability to change my mind about what I write; I often delete more than I send. It would be hard to take back spoken words.

That being said, I find text messaging to be the most annoying invention ever.

I don’t think we know yet the full extent of what it will mean to society until your generation and your children grow up with it as a primary connection point.

There are a lot of things I love about it. I am connected to libraries and resources instantly that I would have difficulty or it would have been impossible for me to access pre-Internet.

As for the social aspects, I definitely prefer real life. Internet relationships are a fantasy. Besides the lack of body language, there is no ability to look into someone’s eyes, there is no way to have a shared physical experience.

What about the incessant testing and twittering that go on these days? If you look at 98% or more of it, there is no there there. It is just blather. It feeds the false idea that everything you do is important and should be recorded for posterity. Here is one small sample of a heavy-texting 22-year-old’s deathless prose.

Looking at the minutes adding up to hours of wasted time, I find it very sad.

I completely disagree that internet relationships are a fantasy. Thanks to growing up and moving away from friends, it is the only way I stay in contact with some of my friends.

So are all of a blind person’s relationships fantasies if your criteria for real relationships are to look into someone’s eyes and see body language? What about talking on the phone? Is that also a fantasy?

What about the thousands of people that have met online and later gotten married? True, most met in person obviously before getting married, but they likely wouldn’t have gotten together in the first place if they didn’t have a real connection online first.

I have always found that I learn more about people through online interaction than in-person. I have had a lot more deep discussions online than I have in person. In person discussion frequently revolves around whatever activity you are doing at the time and is small talk, online discussions frequently delve deeper, at least for me.

Twittering and texting are fine, just depends on how they are used. Some people use them like small talk at a party, just fluffy talk that conveys no actual information and is worthless. Others actually post interesting things. It’s an interesting challenge at times to keep your thoughts to 140 characters, it forces you to boil down your thoughts to the point without a lot of filler.

@nikipedia :-) !!!!!!!!!!!!!

@StellarAirman You actually support my point. Your friends that you keep in touch with were friendships you made in real life.

As for the blind, they participate in real life relationships just as anyone else does except they use their other senses as part of the connection: hearing, smell, touch.

As to the marriages, online is another way to meet someone, but people are unlikely to get married or form a permanent bond without meeting and getting to know one another in person. I don’t know about you, but I sure wouldn’t want to miss out on the real world benefits of marriage in a virtual relationship.

I’ve also had multiple online friends in other states and countries that I’ve never met but have been talking to them online for 8 years. No, I don’t consider them as close as my “real life” friends, but they are not fantasies and they are not without value and they are not worthless or a waste of time.

Why does someone with your opinion of online relationships spend so much time on this site? Not trying to be snarky, just don’t know why you’d consider it all a fantasy and completely inferior to real life but then spend so much time on a social networking site.

@StellarAirman I did not say online relationships are “without value,” “worthless” or “a waste of time.”

Like @Bluefreedom, I am 42, and I agree with what he said. I have always been shy, and come from a dysfunctional family with socially awkward parents… so my social skills aren’t so good. For the past decade, I have worked on improving my social skills in real-life interactions, but those were primarily in a work-related context. I never took social risks.

Shortly after the iPhone came out, i joined a Social Networking site for those with the device. Because the demographic was so small at the time, and leaned more toward the geeky type (no offense to my FamilE) I didn’t feel so much like a fish out of water. I went for get-togethers with others in my area, and formed close friendships with people from around the world, as the device became more widely available.

I did use that group as a somewhat insulated practice environment. They are an awesome group of people, and we have helped each other through difficult times, and celebrated the good times. Because of the confidence I’ve gained and the lessons learned there, I am now active in other social groups that I’ve joined through Meetup.com, and I am making new real-life friends.

Of course that leaves less time for sites like that and this, and I miss those friends. As with Fluther, some of the people on those sites stay in-touch offline as well as via the site. I have shared my information with others, but I still feel awkward contacting someone—as though I’m intruding. I guess they wouldn’t give me their info if they didn’t want to hear from me, but I must still be lacking confidence to some degree.

I have come a loooooong way, but I am still a work in progress; and I intend to keep learning and striving to better myself for the remainder of my existence.