Discussion: Real Life
Jul. 14th, 2009 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asterroc"Real life should take priority over the virtual, such as cellphones, social networking, and video games."
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I am going to rant
Date: 2009-07-15 03:14 am (UTC)How about landline phones? Writing letters, on paper?
I get that you lose certain valuable aspects of communication when you are not talking face to face, but this question is poorly worded, unless its entire intent is to stir shit up. Plus, there are definite benefits of these un"real" things that you cannot get from "real" life. Like easy communication with people all over the world. Oh, sorry, I guess they must be imaginary!
Re: I am going to rant
Date: 2009-07-15 03:37 am (UTC)I phrased it the way that I used to view things since my views are changing. I used to feel that (1) online relationships were not as deep or otherwise valid as face-to-face relationships, and (2) online activities (such as Facebook or playing Gears of War) were for people who have no real friends and/or wish to avoid interactions with people. The nature of how my peers use online activities appears to be changing however, so that they are used to enhance "real life" relationships rather than competing with or supplanting them, so this is making me question my original opinion.
Another related issue is that of the priority of online vs. face-to-face and related etiquette. Is it okay to talk on the cellphone while going through a grocery checkout line? In some massively multiplayer online games you're expected to make the game a priority so that if your guild has a raid, you're expected to be there even if it's your daughter's first piano recital the same night, while in other games people know that you have a real life and would berate you if you went on the raid instead of going to your son's soccer game. Is it socializing with friends if T$'s playing Gears of War and I'm on LJ and we're both in the living room, or are we being rude for ignoring each other?
Re: I am going to rant
Date: 2009-07-15 11:12 am (UTC)In my experience, online relationships -do- tend to lack the same kind of depth you get in a relationship that has a face-to-face component. But I think a lot of that depends on the ability of the people involved to communicate well via text, and, in my experience, people with different text-based communication styles can get on each other's nerves in ways that normal communication mismatches tend not to. Or maybe that's just me.
Re:prioritizing online/phone vs. face-to-face - I think it depends on the circumstances. If I'm on the phone w/my parents, the SO had better have a GOOD reason to try and interrupt me. If I'm in the checkout line, though, the person at the register gets priority over the phone OR anyone I'm going through the line with, but I can see why other people don't feel they need to do that; it isn't like you need to really engage the cashier in deep - or even any - conversation.
It sounds like the MMOwhatevers are the same sort of thing that any extracurricular activity is: some get that you have other things in life that are more important than that activity, and others get bent out of shape if THAT activity is not your number 1.
Are you and T$ talking to each other while engaging in those activities, or are you just having some alone time while in the same space? I don't think that the latter is "ignoring" each other, unless one of you IS trying to socialize while doing that, and the other is just responding with grunts of disinterest (sometimes I wish the SO would share LESS of his email/web browsing when we are internetting in the same room, and sometimes I wish he were more in the "let's share what we're reading" mood).