Reach
It should not be taken lightly that this present interaction—the one which you are participating in right now by reading this sentence—was impossible for the vast majority of human history. While this is true of any number of activities we participate in regularly (and perhaps those also deserve greater consideration) the aspect of this engagement that fascinates me is that this essay can be read anywhere in the world by anyone with internet access. If I manage to convey here an idea worth remembering, it could swiftly go beyond my circle of acquaintance to strangers I might never meet and, over time, even to someone not yet born. Unlikely though it may be, these words can be shared widely across continents with no apparent cost for the indefinite future, which is to say that, like me, everyone reading this possesses an extravagance unknown to previous generations: virtually unlimited reach.
As adaptive as we are as a species, that fact becomes very easy to take for granted. So it is that we now find ourselves stumbling into an epoch where our expressions, however worthy, can instantly be transmitted farther than we might ever walk, and can endure longer than we might ever live. Communication, in the way that most of our distant ancestors experienced it, was a matter of speaking and hearing: range was limited to the distance at which a voice might be heard; duration was only as long as someone cared to remember and repeat something. Yet the inherent value of reach—both in terms of distance and time—must have been apparent from the beginning of the species, for the evolution of communication goes back as far as we can discern, and our desire to refine and amplify speech is quite evident in prayer, song, oral tradition, theater, writing, literature, the printing press, sound recording, telephony, mass media, and finally the internet.
To express yourself online is to address a networked audience of indeterminate size, but it feels like you’re not really speaking to anyone at all.
Though the development of all but the latest of these forms of communication extend back beyond living memory, a comprehensive understanding of each seems to lag far behind. It is not clear that even the fundamentals of simple speech are apparent to many of us, despite the “language arts” comprising a pillar of education. In America, we are mainly taught the technical points of writing: spelling, grammar, the organization of thought into paragraphs and essays. Even this we often do poorly, typically requiring sixteen years of dedicated instruction to achieve fairly basic competence. Our culture seems to consider simple articulateness as the pinnacle of ordinary achievement in expression, refinement being relegated to specialists. Only a little craftsmanship is ever taught (in connection to appreciating literature1) and when effort is made to be less plain in expression, the usual rhetoric one hears recalls the bluster of obnoxious talking heads on television. It hardly occurs to us to devote a moment in schools to provide deliberate instruction in the contemporary etiquette of speech, or to care enough to teach young people to be affable or interesting in their talk—or, on the other hand, to ever extol the virtues of judicious silence.
The consequence of this very utilitarian approach to communication is that we often say things which we regret. Or things which we do not regret, but perhaps ought to.
There are too many varieties of unfortunate expression in this category to list in full, but for consideration’s sake we note (inexhaustively, and in no particular order) the uninformed opinion, condescension, the unintended insult, defensiveness, the accidental private disclosure, gossip, boasting, cruelty, prattle, foolishness, awkwardness, flattery, dishonesty, sanctimony, bias, rudeness, curtness, dismissiveness, indifference, disagreeableness, self-absorption, indiscretion, lack of clarity, and dullness. In relation to these, our education is largely incidental: one's social life is compromised in part of an ongoing, unbeknown experiment in learning the unwritten rules of verbal interaction which most of us will fail to master. Yet we might surmise by the large number of common words dedicated to regrettable discourse that we are all fairly aware and leery of the many potential defects of expression. Why then is our cultural approach to its refinement so limited?
This is not to suggest that we should always convey our thoughts like charming characters in a play, nor that we must never err in our statements. My point is that as profoundly social creatures, we could take more care in cultivating expression beyond merely teaching students how to write it down and arrange it in response to academic prompts. We should all of us devote more thought to and take greater pride in our ability to effectively make ourselves known and understood, reflexively and to each other, and hope thereby to increase collective goodwill. The likely alternative is to inadvertently reduce goodwill in both directions, even to the point of conflict (a situation which has seemingly become more common of late, at least in terms of popular discourse).
Which brings me back to the original matter: reach. It is one thing to be good or bad at expressing yourself among your circle of acquaintance, another to accomplish this on a global scale for all posterity. Whatever the consequences of communication may be, they increase in proportion to the size of one's audience. We know this intuitively: if you are not the type to lose your composure when addressing a large group, you have certainly witnessed others do so, and even very experienced public speakers will feel a rush of adrenaline when addressing a massive crowd. It is a significant irony therefore, that the internet—with its social networks and message boards and electronic publishing—separates the communicator from direct contact with his audience, placing him at a remove from the primal emotional feedback mechanism of social approval or disapproval which regulates prudent expression2. Instead we have things such as “like” buttons, up- and downvoting, blocking, muting, unfriending, hiding, and anonymous comment sections. Is it any wonder, given these clumsy substitutes for consequential face-to-face interaction, that so many people online behave rather recklessly? To express yourself online is to address a networked audience of indeterminate size, but it feels like you’re not really speaking to anyone at all.
Having witnessed the introduction of the internet to the masses during my teens, I can assure everyone that there were no guideposts. No one explained what effect broadcasting our political views to a mass audience from behind a monitor could have on discourse, nor what it meant to encounter a constant, endless parade of unfiltered opinion grounded in different moral foundations and what this might do to our relationships. No one knew what it might mean to opine on a subject that once might have been met with immediate feedback from friends and family and instead receive reinforcement or condemnation from dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of strangers online, or that this already peculiar reinvention of the dynamic of discourse would be manipulated by bots that grow ever more difficult to distinguish from humans. Cognitive dissonance from hearing an offensive opinion which once might have simply resulted in a bitten tongue could suddenly be remedied by fearlessly crashing into a debate; and if we were fairly clueless about our position, there was probably some passable link that we could dig up in a search engine in order to salvage our dignity. It’s hard to see an upside to this sort of engagement.
Should we quarrel at all on the internet?
It is up to us now, as new generations are being raised plugged into this sometimes silly, habit-forming environment, to pay more attention to our progress along this frontier—even as the digital landscape shifts before us. A barrage of questions come to mind. Should we always publish our rebukes against others—not only celebrities and public figures, but those whose notoriety was not chosen? Is it wise to ascend the digital soapbox to transmit our scorn for mundane human failings across the entire world? Are political memes, icons, and reposts just the online version of bumper stickers, and no less tacky? Where, if anywhere, should we broadcast our political voices? In social networks with friends, coworkers and neighbors, taunting our would-be allies with what are usually reductive, one-size-fits-all philosophies regarding issues that are complex beyond our comprehension, and which were perhaps only recently acquired from some grandstanding entertainer who was famous decades ago for reasons unrelated to the issue at hand3? What tone ought we use when addressing a vast audience? Should we quarrel at all on the internet4? What sort of policy should we as a society entertain for mistakes made online?
I should note that the issues considered in the previous paragraph are specific to the realm of expanded online communication. Judgment within one's community, political speech, arguments, public errors: these are normal aspects of social life which take on a different character—one of potentially exponential consequence—on the internet, where words are divorced from the faces that would speak or hear them, and from where, once a certain level of exposure is reached, there is no refuge5. The fundamental questions in this matter then, are what does it mean to express some particular thing online instead of in person, and how should the expression therefore be adapted? The answers are far from obvious, even if you have fumbled with this issue since the beginning, or whether or not you are a parent who has had the problem invade your awareness while watching your own child master the latest cutting edge networked device with enviable ease.
We tend to communicate intuitively, and while this new technology is sometimes intuitive as well, the implications of using it are decidedly not.
Every word, however noble or meager, potentially resounding across the planet, for all time. When I truly consider it, I regard it as miraculous. Humility with respect to this power is warranted, perhaps even reverence. It is not, in any case, just talk anymore.
Or at least it was when I was in school. The focus of instruction in the literary arts seems to have largely shifted to more value-based concerns with regards to content.
This complicates not only mass communication online, but even one-on-one conversations which happen via remote messaging. So many conflicts might be avoided by simply speaking directly instead of messaging back and forth.
If this sounds at all accusatory, I don’t mean you; I mean me. I used to be extremely brash and sanctimonious about my politics online—the result of ignorance of the value of political differences, a desire to emulate demagogues who had made an impression on me, and probably compensation for whatever insecurities I held at the time. If you stuck by me through this obnoxious phase, thank you and I’m sorry.
Me again, haha. I’m truly sorry.
It is now commonplace that certain individual’s lives become irrevocably altered by some social error they committed online. It is also very common that remote bullying occurs in this virtual space, meaning that abuse is now able to transcend the limits of proximity and can occur at all hours.