I get messages and friend requests on different social networking sites daily. I sometimes visits the different profiles of new people that invite me to do something. Visiting different people helps me figure out how different people socialize online. There is a growing trend where people act in different manners that they themselves consider to be smart, and they assume that such online actions, related to socializing, make them smart in the offline world. In reality, when you observe such people, including yourself, you realize how being good at online socialization actually destroys a lot of out offline socializing skills.
We become so good at interacting int he online social networking world, that we start acting in the exact same manner, as we would online on a social networking site, in the offline world also, forgetting all the extra variables that come into play in the offline world. I wonder if the online socializing networking sites are helping people destroy their own offline socializing skills, by over-simplifying the concept of communicating with others.
Take the online interaction allowed through social networking. More and more people are interacting online because they do not know how to interact with people in the offline world. That is both good and bad. It is good because it allows everyone to have an equal chance of meeting new people; if you cannot find self respect from others in the offline world or cannot meet new people easily in the offline world, you can try to build your character and contacts in the online world. It is bad because online social networking sites give you interaction skills that make you treat other human beings as a bunch of online protocols.
Many people cannot apply the same online communication principles to the offline world
Many people can poke on Facebook but they do not know how to communicate occasionally offline. Many guys love adding beautiful random girls online on MySpace but they do not know how to make any kind of a friend in the offline world. Online, a guy or a girl tells the other one how much love exists between them through Orkut, but that same person does not know what love is without sex or money in the offline world. People who are good at telling the truth online through their social networking blogs and messages to other online contacts, are also usually good at lying about the same things offline and vice versa, because they simply do not know how to communicate in the offline world.
Many people love disagreeing with their virtual friends without any logic, yet the same people do not know how to deal with anyone disagreeing with them in the offline world. Many people know when to block and delete a friend from their online social networking account, yet those same people do not know when an offline friend is actually not a friend and should simply be ignored, and vice versa. People can talk about honesty and friendship online through a lot of philosophical words in order to impress, but in real life, one can end friendship over sex, a dollar, a movie ticket, a disagreement, stubbornness or even food. Similarly, other people can talk about honesty and friendship in the online world in a very simple manner, yet they cannot help but complicate the same things in the offline world.
Why? Many people not know how to keep in mind all the different variables involved when communicating in the offline world, including the variable of being selfless sometimes.
Are online social networking sites so easy to use that people are deleting their own common sense?
I wonder if, at least for some people, the online social networking sites are making them better at portraying an illusion of communication online, yet making those same people clueless as to how to respect others and how to be considerate to others when it comes to socializing and interacting with other people in the offline world.
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