Internet help: To those who downplay electronic communication: - Help.com

Well, the internet isn’t “destroying” anything imo

“Intrapersonal skills”. They’re talking about actually communicating with someone face-to-face, rather than having to use a computer or a phone. Technology will never substitute a relationship. Can a computer replace a hug? A kiss? How about a wedding? Climbing a mountain? Going to a party with your friends? The internet is a great way to meet people, and keep in touch with people when you can’t be near them. It goes down to this: The life of someone who experiences the world from sitting behind a computer does not have the same life as someone who goes out and actually experiences things for themselves.

I wholly disagree.
In fact, I couldn’t disagree more were I to try.

Intrapersonal skills sounds like the biggest load of b/s

well, try anonymous.

Hunnnnngh.
HUUUNNNNNNGGGHHH!!!!

Nope, sorry.

Erm, don’t know how to fix a hernia do you…?

what??

Just make your case, goddam it!

So, your idea of “intrapersonal skills” is for everything to be about YOU? From the name YOU choose, to the discussion YOU decide to grace with YOUR presence, with YOUR opinions and YOUR ideas?

This is so delusional, it’s not even funny.

If you want to have real relationships with people online, then do this:
Get on Facebook, and invite all of your friends to come help you move heavy furniture into storage this weekend.
Delete anybody that doesn’t show up.

Then I’ll be able to take what you’re saying a little more seriously.

Duskbrod,
You are wrong here, Electronic Communications is not only related to the internet, it is related to any form of communication which requires an electronic device, such as radios, they are classified as Electronic Communications.

Blest wrote:
So, your idea of “intrapersonal skills” is for everything to be about YOU? From the name YOU choose, to the discussion YOU decide to grace with YOUR presence, with YOUR opinions and YOUR ideas?

This is so delusional, it’s not even funny.

If you want to have real relationships with people online, then do this:
Get on Facebook, and invite all of your friends to come help you move heavy furniture into storage this weekend.
Delete anybody that doesn’t show up.

Then I’ll be able to take what you’re saying a little more seriously.

I like that. Well-said.

Well, I think Call Me Chris said it well enough, but here’s my tu’penny’s worth.

Duskbrood wrote:
The internet forum provides something never before truly seen. It has provided us with communication without a face or a voice, and this is a good thing.

I’m afraid not ALL good.
There’s many a study that shows quite clearly that the badge of Anonymity allows one to act outside of their usual moral and social constraints.
NOT a good thing for any society wishing to remain ’social’.

Duskbrood wrote:
the resources on the internet allow me to quickly become an expert on any subject I so choose

No, they don’t. They allow you to skim a subject and pick out relevant points - this is NOT becoming an “expert” at anything.
“Experts” spend YEARS on one topic, attending courses that take up their free time and does not allow them the freedom to ’study’ whilst debating on an online chatroom.

Duskbrood wrote:
From the moment I log on, I’m instantly and totally only ME

No, you’re not always.
What people see online is your front, your mask. It’s the image you WANT to be, but no, it’s not who you are. This is true of ALL human social interaction. We all create fronts/masks of differing degrees to help interact with others.

Duskbrood wrote:
You say the relationships I maintain on here aren’t real, but how can that be? Just because i haven’t seen someone’s face, heard their voice, I somehow don’t know them?

Seriously? Come on now.
Of course they’re ‘Real’- they exist in space/time. They’re just also lacking in material substance - unfortunately, something that’s fundamental with regards to ‘Real friends’, although perhaps your definition of a ‘real’ friend may differ from the general view.
If you think you can know someone without meeting them, you are due for some nasty suprises before you learn the hard way that you’re so very far off the mark there.
You DO know that people can be whoever they want to be on here, right? So, just like you can escape being the person you are In Real Life by coming online and being someone(whom you for now consider ‘the real you’) without the failings you(we all) have, so too can anyone else come online and pretend to be whoever they wish to be, be, male, female, fat or thin - the internet allows one to possibility to create their own virtual but nevertheless, fantasy image - to deny that reality and say that “there’s no pretense online” is an utterly absurd statement!

Duskbrood wrote:
Just because i haven’t seen someone’s face, heard their voice, I somehow don’t know them?

Ha ha! I just read that again, and realized that’s exactly how those people that stalk celebrities sound. “Just because they’ve never met me, and we haven’t ever spoken to each other, doesn’t mean that Brad Pitt doesn’t love me!”

Blest wrote:

Duskbrood wrote:
Just because i haven’t seen someone’s face, heard their voice, I somehow don’t know them?

Ha ha! I just read that again, and realized that’s exactly how those people that stalk celebrities sound. “Just because they’ve never met me, and we haven’t ever spoken to each other, doesn’t mean that Brad Pitt doesn’t love me!”

Hey, let’s not start making fun out of the OP, thank you.

Blest wrote:
So, your idea of “intrapersonal skills” is for everything to be about YOU? From the name YOU choose, to the discussion YOU decide to grace with YOUR presence, with YOUR opinions and YOUR ideas?

This is so delusional, it’s not even funny.

If you want to have real relationships with people online, then do this:
Get on Facebook, and invite all of your friends to come help you move heavy furniture into storage this weekend.
Delete anybody that doesn’t show up.

Then I’ll be able to take what you’re saying a little more seriously.

that’s how you define friends? all the people who will show up to move your furniture?

i’d like to point out a few things.

online communication does connect you with real, live, thinking and breathing people with their own personal lives and stories. whether we can be honest with each other through these communication methods is a different story altogether. though it is possible.

online communication DOES increase our relationships by quantity, but it does not necessarily increase our relationships by quality. though it is possible.

online communication DEFINITELY accelerates the speed and distance at which ideas are shared, whether it’s sites like Help.com or 4chan.org

basically, the internet is like every other communication device out there. it allows us to communicate faster and farther. it allows us to conceal more and provides an alternative to face-to-face communication. these things aren’t bad in themselves, nor good in themselves. the internet is a tool, and it creates what its users decide to make with it.

iam0zy wrote:
that’s how you define friends? all the people who will show up to move your furniture?

Of course that’s not how I define friends. But it was an illustration to explain the difference between “real” friends, and digital ones. How do you KNOW that somebody is an actual friend? They make time for you, and they help you, and they are THERE FOR YOU. And I have had many real friends that moved away, and we kept in touch online. And I have met a couple people online, that became my friends when I met them in person.

I’ve got thousands of acquaintances, but very few friends. I communicate by e-mail and cell phone on a daily basis with people in other companies that I have to do business with. That doesn’t mean we are friends, or that I have any kind of real relationship with them. Just like having “friends” on facebook that you text every day; they aren’t your actual friends. They’re just acquaintances.

I’m not saying that online comunication is bad; quite the opposite. But people take it TOO FAR. When you are at the grocery store, and the cashier is tallying up your purchases, it is rude to be on your cell phone. When somebody at work asks if you want to hang out with the group after hours, and you turn them down so you can go home and talk to your “friends” online… there’s something wrong with that.

I love communications technology. It’s great, and it can connect people that never would have ever met otherwise. But connection isn’t the problem here. The problem is that people have slowly REPLACED real relationships and real human interaction with digital communication with people they “connect” with. And that’s not good. Because as people, we need interaction with real people, that we can touch, and hug, and smell. And this is not just a personal opinion; it’s an understanding based on psychological evidence.

Also remember that “connections” are great, but they aren’t a relationship. They’re just how you meet somebody. And no matter how “connected” you feel to somebody, until you actually meet them, or know them, then they are not your friend. I see a woman named Cookie every time I go grocery shopping. She works at the store, and is my cashier every so often. I thought her name was cute, and she is a fun person to talk to. We are “connected”, but we are not friends. And this is a real person in my everyday life.

I’m not saying to get rid of pen pals, or to get rid of anybody that doesn’t drop whatever they’re doing any time you need them. Just recognize online, phone, and face-to-face relationships are more than just connections. Life is cluttered enough as it is, without having 400 people that you vaguely remember from High School constantly telling you whatever trivial thing happened to them during the day. Remember when you DIDN’T know what the guy that sat next to you in chem lab eight years ago was having for breakfast this morning? Let’s go back to that…

A nice addition, Blest.

You mentioned Pen-Pals.
Even with those, you have the opportunity to see into their true characters by their handwriting styles, unless it’s typed correspondence of course.

With online communication, these unique ‘fingerprints’ of our writing styles disappear, wich further reduces our abilities to judge another by our (often subconscious)inherent psychological skills, bourne of a lengthy collective history of human physical contact, not excepting the physical and psychological aspects of the written(not typed) word.

Either way, the generation that has grown up relying on virtual friends(thereby eroding by disuse some of their important inherent abilities) is NOT a good thing, looking to the future of such individuals.

i don’t think anyone replaces real friendship with online friendships. people who are able to make friends before the internet continue making friends even if their facebook “friends” list reaches 400. and people who are too shy to talk to people in real life remains the same regardless of whether or not she has people on her friends list or not. i don’t know of anyone who has lost friends because they decided to establish communications to other people online (with the exception of korea, because korea is ****** crazy ;] ).