How can I be comfortable talking to people online, but feel so unsure of myself and anxious in person?
Some of you reading this blog remember that the only way to communicate with our friends as kids was to talk to them at school or call their house and leave a message with their parents. By necessity and due to lack of technology, we had to speak extemporaneously (e.g., I speak, then you respond, then I respond, all without having the time to craft perfect, socially desirable responses) about a lot of the deep (and not so deep) things teenagers discuss as part of developing an identity. There were limits put on our social time – curfews, being yelled at to get off the phone already because dad was waiting for a call (this was before call waiting, when you’d just get a busy signal if the line was engaged).
Some of you reading this blog have no idea what it’s like to have to wait to speak to someone, or to communicate without the benefit of planned responses. You’ve become accustomed to talking with others at all hours of the day and night, unhampered by curfews, since you’re doing this from your bedroom. You carry on multiple virtual interactions at the same time – texting a friend, while checking Snapchat and Instagram and messaging other friends. And you think I must be a crotchedy old person for making these distinctions.
Social anxiety is not new – we can’t blame it on the rise of information technology and social media. However, we do know that the rise of social media is correlated with people (especially teenagers) going out less often and getting involved in fewer intimate relationships. Teenagers are having less sex now than they did 25 years ago. It’s hard to see that as a bad thing. But, is there a hidden cost to the sea change in relationships and social development that technology and social media appear to have triggered?
Take a moment to answer a few questions for me – 1) What were some of the best moments of your life as a teenager? 2) What were some of the most painful moments from the same timeframe? 3) How many of these moments involved other people? 4) How many of these moments contributed to who you are today?
Let me take a leap and say that most (if not all) of the key moments of your adolescent life involved other people, and those ones were the most powerful ones (e.g., the ones that contribute to your identity now).
So, what happens when this key time in identity development – in fact, the MOST key time – is compromised by having fewer opportunities to experiment socially with our genuine selves? Online, we can be whomever we want. If we think we’re supposed to respond in a particular way, we can do so. If we have strong feelings about something or someone, we can convey them unedited because there’s no immediate consequence of being exposed to that person’s emotional response. We can share more of ourselves than we intend or than is healthy, due to a sense of false intimacy, and a lack of social feedback suggesting we might have overshared. “Friend”ship is a tally of how many people answer in the affirmative a two-sentence request to be a “friend,” and value as an individual is measured by how many people have said “yes” to this request. We can subsequently end “friend”ships by removing that person from our list of friends, without ever having a discussion about anything. When our relationships exist primarily online, we can avoid actual, in-person conflict entirely. We can even avoid it online by simply not responding to someone’s messages. Instead of fixing relational problems, we can ghost someone until they get the hint.
If most or all of our relationships and social interactions take place primarily online or via technology, we don’t ever have to learn how to deal with conflict, decide which friendships are healthy for us and which aren’t, or figure out our interpersonal boundaries. We don’t have to engage with others empathically, nor do we need to share deeply of ourselves. Technology allows for a level of disconnection and social-emotional avoidance that becomes profoundly impactful upon our identities and ways of being in the world. As a result, when we find that we need to interact face-to-face with someone, we struggle to find the requisite skills and self-confidence to feel effective in this. This feels bad, so we avoid it, and when we avoid it, we don’t feel anxious. No one likes feeling anxious, so continuing to avoid those types of interactions seems like a good plan. At least in the moment. Until we can’t avoid it, or no longer wish to avoid it (e.g., we’re lonely). Then, we not only feel anxious, but also inadequate, embarrassed, or incompetent.
As we discover more electronic methods of communicating with others, we risk losing sight of the human-to-human connection. Don’t worry – I’m not advocating for all of us to shut down our social media accounts and drop our smartphones in the toilet. What I am advocating for is that we do the hard work of nurturing and losing relationships, and learning about who we are and how we grow in that process. It isn’t easy. But it’s real.