The whole idea of an on-line community has always been a bit difficult for me. I have a friend at work who’s helping me with learning Twitter and Instagram, but it feels a bit like learning a new language. Many of my friends, colleagues, or patients of an ‘older’ generation talk about how social media (and technology in general) is separating everyone from making substantial meaningful contact with fellow human beings (I know I have a very strong love/hate relationship with my computer, but I’m fairly certain that’s not what they mean 🙂 ).
I recently went to a Socrates Cafe, where a group gets together and discusses all kinds of different topics. The group I found myself in was discussing, “How do we balance freedom and security in our Democracy?” You would think this topic would steer clear of things of a “Tweeting” nature. But, when the slightest hint of social media came up, the older people in the room jumped into how young people just can’t seem to put their ‘devices’ down. The expounded on how youth are missing out on making real human connections. Meanwhile, the students attending (to my surprise), just seemed to have an expression that was a mix of feeling scolded (they kind of were), with a hint of ‘these old people just don’t get it.’
I have to admit, I went home feeling discouraged. Not about the topic that we were all discussing, those conversations were pretty lively. I was upset by the dividing lines I saw between the generations in my group. Two generations (probably more than two) were talking at each other. Their minds were made up, and they had both stopped listening to one another. The elders were positive that social media inhibited personal connection. While the students were emphatic that it was a huge part of their social lives. Although the conversation was alive and kicking, they were faced off and disconnected from one another. Talking at each other, but not listening.
I didn’t feel much different myself. I believed that digital devices were annoying…especially if I was trying to talk to someone and their eyes were glued to a small, glaring screen. A screen that wasn’t talking back to them – at least not in any way that I would consider a ‘real’ conversation. Growing up, my father was always about making friends: “give a ‘firm hand shake!” and the importance of looking another in the eye when speaking with them. The phone, at the time, was our generations secondary way of connection. Usually, unless you were talking to someone out of state (or the country for that matter) you were talking on the phone to make plans to actually get together and see the person you were talking to. ‘Tweets’ (quick responses to immediate stimuli) were short comments made over a beverage while watching the game with a friend (or even just the guy sitting next to you). These were all ‘acceptable’ was of making real connections with others by my generation (and up), and I couldn’t understand how anyone could see it differently.
I at least wanted to know both sides of the story. So, when I got home, I got on my unfriendly, human-contact-inhibiting device (computer), and Googled online community connections. First thing that came up was this story from CBS about a 22-year-old African American man who became great friends with an 81-year-old retiree in Florida from the on-line game, “Words with Friends.”
When Spencer Sleyon agreed to play a Words with Friends game with a random opponent over a year ago, the 22-year-old never expected that stranger — an 81-year-old woman named Rosalind \”Roz\” Guttman — to become his lifelong friend. Sleyon, an aspiring rapper from Harlem, New York, Guttman living in a retirement community in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“That’s crazy!” I thought. Here were two people that would likely avoid each other on the street if they saw one another. Yet, here they were in the context of an on-line game, exchanging ideas, thoughts, sending messages back and forth, even some good ribbing here and there, without even knowing how old each other were, each other’s nationalities, interests, anything really. Could it be the fact that they couldn’t or didn’t know these things about one another that helped them make a real connection without prejudice, or assuming how the other thinks?
Wait a second…
I play online poker.
Huh, I thought. I do play on-line poker. I send messages (talk) to the other players at the table. We rib each other. Follow each other to different ‘digital tables’ and ‘friend’ each other, so we know where and when we are playing at a table. I have friends I’ve made on this game from Boston, Tennessee, California, even one in Ireland! I don’t know what they look like, how they sound, their financial situations, even if they are using their real names (their ‘handles’ can be quite colorful…and my avatar, my photo at the table – is Red Foxx 🙂 ) Yet, we do seem to share a bond, a comradery. We may not be close, but we are a community of on-line poker players.
I closed my laptop, gave a little chuckle at myself, got out my evil, “life sucking’ cell phone, and opened my on-line poker app. I realized I hadn’t played in a while (a while being a few days), and was wondering how ‘cashhound24’ was doing. If he was still talking trash to ‘ladyinred’ – they seem to always be at the same tables, giving each other a hard time, which always makes for a more lively game. There were other things I could have done with my down time: watched a movie with a friend, gone out and saw a band in town. But I was missing the rabble of my on-line community, so I pulled up a ‘virtual chair’ at the digital table where my on-line friends were, and played some cards.
