It seems rather counter-intuitive to the modern concept that the wired world connects more people than ever before, that it could also be one of the most disconnecting links to our humanity. As written by Jason Calacanis in his article, The End of Empathy, the emotional cues of face-to-face interaction are lost on the internet, leading to what he calls “Internet Asperger’s Syndrome (IAS)”. In this syndrome, people on the internet stop perceiving the basic human goodness in people, and what develops is a decline of empathy, followed ultimately by the worst aspects of humanity: hatred, envy, and greed. Since individuals are representative only by the non-emotive expressions of words and avatars, people on the internet are reduced to nothing more than objects. The pursuit of attention on the internet becomes of foremost concern that is fed by the human desire for higher visitor stats, more Twitter followers, more Facebook friends. While social networking is considered one of the greatest tools of business for the modern e-commerce age, it has also reduced human interactivity to that of short exchanges of meaningless banter.
In truth, the anonymity of the internet has enabled people to abandon the individualistic life they lead in the “real world”, and pursue the various personas, and ideas that they can’t, or perhaps won’t, try outside the wired world. Although anonymity can be a means of shielding the public from dehumanizing the individual, it is not an end to the random attacks that constitute the hedonistic internet. I write a blog mainly for my own enjoyment, and receiving comments and feedback from it is a part of that enjoyment. Still, there have been times when I’ve found it necessary to withdraw, because of being emotionally hurt by the words of seemingly emotionless entities.
At times my writing has been described as “pedestrian”, weak, unimaginative, lacking in both formal structure and style. Criticizing my writing is perhaps the easiest way to hurt me, and a thousand comments of praise from individuals who visit here often can be overruled by one insensitive remark from somebody I’ve never heard of. Known as “drivebys”, these anonymous entities often visit a blog and write nothing more than a vicious insult, or a take a threatening tone. A sudden visit by one of these people can leave one feeling cold, shocked, disconnected from the enjoyment that is participating in the interactivity with other people.
As Jason Calacanis describes in his article, this small act can be one that destroys the very will to continue on:
As you know, I moved to this email newsletter to get away from the IAS factor on blogs. It worked for the first four months, but last month, someone flamed me, calling me an idiot and my missive “garbage.” It was the first time any one of the 12,000 or so people on the list ever flamed me.
Now, I consider myself a fairly thick-skinned, tough person, but I realized that I had not emailed you in a month, and that it was probably because of that short email. The 12k suffered due to a three sentence flame by just one person, probably suffering from IAS.
Perhaps the worst-kept secret I have is that my writing name isn’t my first name. I chose my middle name specifically because of a historically relevant interaction I had with a deranged individual on the internet. While I’ve been mocked by many for this, having my name “scare-quoted” by detractors, there is a very real and pragmatic reason for using my middle name. A few years ago when I was writing opinion pieces on the internet under my given name, without any shielding whatsoever from the entities that ebb and flow in the internet stream, I received some interest from a particular individual who shared my opinions on immigration. What began as a commonality in one political position led to his wanting me to read “the truth” about the holocaust and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Realizing I was dealing with a neo-Nazi, I began to put some distance between myself and this person, but I rather unwisely publicly rebuked him in a forum. The next thing I knew, he was calling my house.
I don’t know if you’ve ever known the fear of having the shroud of your virtual world torn from your eyes, only to realize there are real-life implications to your words. The man on the phone with me was threatening, hostile, frightening. The mention of a gun was used, and the suggestion that my home really wasn’t that far from his.
Shortly after I stopped writing. I stopped participating in the internet medium while I sought to absorb the consequences of interacting with these faceless denizens of the world wide web. Because I enjoy writing, I returned, but only under a new shield of protection. I now began to choose my words carefully, my associations even more so. I sought to engage in “friendly” exchanges and a debate of ideas with people, but never to expose myself to a point where I would put myself or my family in danger. Even so, I’ve been caught up in pointless arguments and countless encounters with people who take the electronic manifestation of my intellectual presence in this universe, and wrap it neatly into a condescending and belittling remark that seeks to destroy my emotional confidence. In internet parlance, it’s called having a “thick-skin”.
Jason Calacanis describes the encounters he often has with those who have made disparaging remarks about him in the wired world, back in the world of flesh and blood:
I’ve had a couple of folks introduce themselves to me in the past couple of years and say something to the effect of “Oh, I wrote this horrible thing about you but I didn’t really mean it. I really respect your work.” They are normally very uncomfortable when this happens. Sometimes, they are even shaking and stuttering. I typically pretend I don’t know what they’re talking about and tell them it doesn’t matter–a complete lie. Typically, I know exactly what they said, because you remember when folks say something nasty. I’ve come to the conclusion that all I can do is forgive them and move on.
The problem with the dehumanizing aspect of IAS is that people tend to forget there is a real, thinking, caring human being behind the pixels. While it may seem entertaining to refer to people in derogatory terms, with invective and pejoratives that are laced with cruelty, such words rarely fail to infect the psyche of the person inflicting them. Since people are objectified on the internet, it somehow seems valid to attack the object of scorn with ridicule. But by turning people into neat categorically-incompatible objects that are to be treated with contempt, we’re subconsciously teaching ourselves that it’s okay to identify as aggressive, psychologically violent behaviours. Behaviours which, logically, will manifest themselves in the real world, just as it did during the objectification of women in the past.
I believe that this is partly what separates political blogs into the echo chambers in which they generally reside. The resultant exchanges of counter-partisan debate inevitably devolves into a complete lack of empathy for the opponent. As humanity is lost, that connection in the physical world that makes us more than just a sentient species, the breakdown of communication is based upon inflicting psychological warfare. In this war, as in others in the real world, one cannot escape without casualties. The engagement of psychological warfare cannot be waged without damage to one’s, for lack of a better term, soul.
