Most of the time, I prefer it when people leave me alone and let me do my own thing, but sometimes, I get bored and lonely and I crave attention. I'm not a super social guy, but I like having a small circle of friends and family to hang around with.
I'm generally a lot more outgoing online than I am in real life, as I love discussing things in online forums or even occasionally jumping into chatrooms, but to me this feels a lot different than face to face communication, as I don't feel forced to stick around any longer than I want to.
I think the biggest difference between online communication and "real life" communication is the speed that it happens at; when you're talking to someone in person or on the phone, it's all happening in real time, and you have to keep up. When you're talking to someone online, especially on a forum or through email, you can go more at your own pace.
I will admit that I'm not the biggest fan of texting or Facebook messaging, but I use them out of necessity for communicating with people I know in real life. They still suffer from some of the same problems that other forms of "IRL" communication have, namely that people I know IRL generally expect quick responses and insist on carrying out full conversations, even though I'm a rather slow typist. In this case, I actually prefer just getting a phone call, unless there's some very exact information I need to provide/get. If people did things my way, text-based messaging would be used for exchanging information, and voice-based communication would be used for real-time conversation.
I guess my point is that I hate having to communicate in real time, and that people nowadays often choose the most inconvenient methods to do so. If you have to talk to me in real time, make a f*****g phone call, otherwise, don't bother.
05 Mar 2015, 2:50 am
