Imagine being in a relationship without actually meeting the other person. For the purpose of this article I define a meeting as an actual face-to-face encounter. Lately, it seems, I’ve talked to a ton of people who are in these relationships and don’t see their situation as anything out of the ordinary. I’m perplexed by the whole notion of knowing someone only through a computer screen.
It all started about three months ago when one of my friends told me she was going to be catching up with another friend. She had developed a personal connection with someone from a discussion group and decided to turn their interactions into a relationship. The two of them text and Skype regularly, but have no plans of ever meeting.
Another person I know told me she met her boyfriend through an online video game website while she was broadcasting. She lives in this area and he lives on the west coast. Though they have actually met and consider themselves a couple, their original interactions were strictly online. The two of them are planning a trip in the coming months.
How can two people connect enough to form a bond without actually sitting in the same room? Maybe because of my age the whole thing baffles me and leaves me wondering how these relationships can work. Turns out, technology seems to be the evil culprit behind virtual relationships.
Nowadays everyone lives through their phone and computer screens. Social media, text messaging and augmented reality games have made it the norm to always be connected via the internet. Smartphones that are always in our pocket and connected to the internet make the phenomenon of never having to meet anyone easier to occur.
Lately I’ve noticed my forty something year old traditional relationships that started out normal almost always end up behind a screen. Reluctantly, one of my friends just signed up for Facebook after pressure from our old high school group. Shortly after she signed up for Facebook I noticed our call frequency declined appreciably. We still grab dinner a couple times a year, but instead of catching up on phone calls we talk about Facebook stuff.
Younger customers coming into my stores for service work have a difficult time interacting. I’ve recently noticed that millennials tend to communicate more with the store online than by phone or in-person. Not all, but some from this generation have difficulty explaining their issues or asking for what they want. I bet if I created some type of electronic based Q & A system it would shatter this barrier.
I know this is extreme, but human extinction comes to mind when I ponder virtual relationships. My kids’ mother and I met through a friend and my parents met in high school. None of us had phone screens and for obvious reasons, never considered texting. Twenty two years ago people met in person and wanted to have physical relationships.
On the other hand virtual relationships may not be half bad. Never actually meeting someone means there’s little chance for anything abrasive to happen. Interacting in a virtual or augmented world allows two people to see only positive aspects of the other person. Maybe the next generation will truly have virtual relationships and the person on the other end won’t really be a person. Would it really matter if the person of the other side of the screen was a real person or some form of artificial intelligence?
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)