Mana's Musings

By now it’s no revelation that we’re living in a digital era. 160 character text messages and 140 character tweets have replaced phone calls, letters, and even in-person vists. This is the world we live in; this isn’t a new development any longer.

But every now and then someone will get up on a soapbox and mourn the death of written communication as we know it. Text-speak, they invariably argue, is taking over new generations and rendering today’s youth incapable of communicating in a formal or businesslike manner.

Like, OMGZ! RU srs? Wot do u mean its 2 l8 2 lrn to cmnct?

I can’t help but roll my eyes at the idea of people growing up and truly not comprehending that text-speak isn’t appropriate for anything but the most casual situations. If someone wants to throw a “l8r” and few “OMGs” into a cover letter, great. Consider it a form of career Darwinism.

The problem I have with online communication isn’t that it’s hampering my ability to write – in fact, my problem is quite the opposite.

I’m forgetting how to talk.

I’ve always gravitated toward the written word, well before online networking became our default method of social interaction. Just ask my high school boyfriends who would inevitably receive long, drawn out letters analyzing our relationships in the way only a teenage girl can do, rather than a simple phone call. (Sorry guys).

Then came MSN messenger, and my college days spent sitting in lectures chatting with friends – sometimes in the same class – via IM rather than opening our mouths. This was seven years ago, and from there my reliance on written communication has snowballed. I got a job right out of school where phoning clients was frowned upon. The protocol was to always send an email and copy the VP on the message in order to leave a “paper trail” for all communication. Three years of this left me seasoned in business email writing, and a total novice at verbal communication.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to call up my friends or spend time in person with people from my inner monkey sphere. But when it comes to more challenging, less “social” conversations I’ll sooner write a Facebook message, an email, a tweet, a DM or a forum post before I’ll pick up the phone and call someone. My brain has become wired to appreciate and even expect that precious moment to organize my thoughts that digital communication affords.

So you’ve received an email, a Facebook message, a YouTube comment? Not sure how to reply? That’s perfectly fine! Even in the most time-sensitive situations, people realize these methods are a form of asynchronous communication and an immediate response isn’t expected. Even in instant messaging conversations, meant to be taking place in real time, one has the luxury of waiting a moment or two before replying. There’s no uncomfortable dead air, no ums and ahs and other filler, no nervous babble to fill the silence.

The unsurprising result is now, when I do get on the phone or meet someone in person I feel out of my element. Oh noes! This person just said something that threw me for a loop! Eek, that’s not what I was expecting. Quick, you’ve got five seconds to formulate a perfect response before the silence becomes deafening.

I think verbal communication is like pretty much any other skill – use it or lose it. I finished school and entered a world where digital communication was already king, and as a result I never really took the time to nurture verbal communication in the way someone would have been forced to even 15 years ago. This overdependency on the written word stands to cause problems in situations where a phone call or a face-to-face meeting would actually be more appropriate, despite not being my go-to method of communicating. But on the other hand, the ability to communicate clearly through text-based means has served me well.

And I can’t help but wonder – why aren’t they teaching this in high school? Why is it that everyone needs to know the ins and outs of quadratic equations, but no attention is paid to balancing all the different methods of communication one needs to embrace in order to be successful in 2010?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an email to write, some texts to reply to, and mailing list to read. Ttfn and c all u ppl l8r.

When I got my first internet connection at the age of 18, my mother freaked out.

It didn’t matter that I was the one paying the bill, and that I was finally legally old enough to have a connection in my name. All she could think of was the message that had been drilled into her head by the media; the internet is scary. The internet is unsafe. The internet is teeming with icky, balding middle-aged men who sit around in their underwear and lure unsuspecting young things to their untimely demise.

Now, token disclaimer; I’m not saying those things don’t happen. We’ve all heard specific stories of people being enticed by someone online, to a negative end. But it’s just like the idea that any number of awful fates can befall someone walking home from a metro station. Can bad things happen? Sure. Should you feel paralyzed and refrain from living your life as a result? I certainly don’t think so.

I’m getting rather tired of the paranoia.

The internet is NOT an inherently dangerous place. Not any more so than walking down the street. I spoke to someone recently about online safety, and every third sentence was teeming with fear and inaccuracy.

For one thing, she told me that Twitter is a particularly dangerous place, especially for young teens to be lured.

Seriously? Teens are really being lured in 140 characters or less? Wow.

“O hai. U R a pretty thing. Meet me @ 12th St @ 9pm & I’ll give u Jonas Bros tix just for bein so hot.”

I mean… really?

She also told me that a savvy online predator can figure out your home address from your email address. I’m not an internet security expert, but I can’t comprehend that on a technical level. I mean, unless you’re on a forum typing something like “my email address is hot-baybee-99099@yahoo.com and I live at 124 Cherry Tree lane”, the two shouldn’t even be connected. Even in the case of an ISP-based email account, my understanding is that ISPs don’t even like to give out that information in the case of piracy proceedings. So how is Joe Schmo online going to find that out?

Granted, the woman I was speaking with kept calling IP addresses “IPS addresses” and avatars “attars,” so I think there may be a take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt element involved.

But the point is that people hear things like this in the media, and they get paranoid. Parents freak out, and think that in order to keep their kids safe, they need to keep them off the internet. And in 2009, that’s ludicrous. Teens NEED the skills developed by time spent on social networking sites. They shouldn’t be banned from accessing such sites just because of some half-baked idea that it’s terribly unsafe. They need to be educated on how to keep themselves safe, just as they’re taught to be street-smart while on that walk home from the metro station.

They need to learn what’s acceptable, and what’s stupid. Let’s compare it to real life. Two friends walking through a school field at 4pm in a middle class neighbourhood? Acceptable. Walking around at 3am drunk or high, alone, in the roughest part of town? Stupid.

And of course, there are parallels online, too. Having a Facebook account? Chatting on a message board? Acceptable. Posting your home address and trusting the random guy on MySpace when he says you’re his everything and you should meet him at his hotel room? Stupid.

A couple years ago there was a media story about a party. Someone threw a party where far more people showed up than were invited, and one of the guests was murdered – with an axe to his head. Did the media blame the nutjob who arrived at a party, axe in hand, and used it on another person? Nope. They blamed the fact that the party was planned on Facebook.

Right. Because when some psycho turns up with an axe it’s Facebook’s fault, not the axe-weilding psycho’s fault.

Ultimately, it’s obvious people shouldn’t throw every detail of themselves out there for the world to consume, but people also need to think twice before they let fear paralyze them. Otherwise they run the risk of missing out. For example, I know three couples who met online, ranging in age from 15-40+. One couple is married with two kids, one couple is engaged. In my own experience, I’ve met some really great friends online. In fact, a few months ago I got on a plane to Europe to meet some of these people. But I did it in a public places, during daylight hours. Result? I had a fantastic experience with people from completely different walks of life, people who I’d never have known existed if not for online communication.

The moral of the tale? Learn some basic online safety tips. But don’t be paranoid. The internet isn’t going to get you.