For a decade or so we have been on a verge of a new social scheme. It’s not replacing the old ones, but rather it has added a whole new layer of interaction between people. In some ways, its also changing the other schemes. The internet is a game changer.
Though it comprises of many things like new additions to language and so on, the most striking thing about it is a new type of socially interacted individualism. Actually, the concept itself is not new, it has been talked for a while. There are many good papers on a framework called social individualism. But the internet has brought a new arena for it.
What it means is that people behave differently – more from an individual point of view – when their supposed interlocutors (or audience if you will) are not immediately present (yet still exist as a social interactive community). It is even more so, when their own identity is concealed, but it does happen with known identities nonetheless. We self-actualize our existence for others, in other words, we try to establish ourselves to others. People want to be heard and understood, and the web has brought a new way to do it.
Facebook or twitter would be the most obvious examples. We publish our thoughts and our goings as status updates and hope to get as broad audience as possible. While it’s social, as in there are multiple people involved and there is a possibility for feedback, the core is quite individualistic. We tout ourselves, our thoughts, things we bought, our children’s doings and things of that nature to others. Though there are sometimes conversations about our updates, the things mostly revolve around ourselves. The status update is indeed what it sounds: an update where we try to make our social status better. This is not to say every status update is of this nature, just that many of them are. Different forums on the net are even more like this, since in most cases we write there without our identities. The link between the communicator and the audience is even lighter then, thus making the interaction resemble more like a shout competition rather than a conversation. But it’s still social, as it has a way of feedback and it is thrown on a social arena unlike in the case of radio broadcast or a book. Many times the communication reduces to the level of toilet-writings, although luckily there has been considerable progress in this area. People are slowly starting to learn the proper conduct.
It is interesting to note, that whenever we are relatively free of social pressure, we easily tend to use that opportunity for our individual needs. Humans are of that nature.
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