By Keith C. Milne
Normally, when someone speaks about symbolic interaction, it is easy to assume that he or she is referring to people engaging in interaction face-to-face. Concepts such as The Presentation of Self or The Definition of the Situation only seem possible within this context. However, technology, namely computers, has changed the way that most of us living in a developed country do things in our post-modern world, including the way many of us interact.
With the advent and proliferation of personal computers, smart phones and tablets, many of us now use texting, and electronic mail (email) to communicate, but we also engage in video conferencing, and have chat room “conversations.” These new forms of communication offer alternative ways of interacting with one another, and serve us by linking us together electronically. This has created new opportunities, as well as new obstacles in our interaction with one another.
I’m going to explore some of these obstacles and opportunities that I encountered with the “presentation of myself” during my initial phase of communication with Connie, the woman I am now happily married to, and have been for over 25 years. We used email which, back in the mid-1990’s, was a big deal because only about one in fifty people at that time owned a computer or knew anything about communicating using this new medium of communication.
Connie and I met “online,” against all odds on the night of Saturday, March 2, 1996, when I read, and responded to, a very articulate and personal posting of hers in the newsgroup posting. Newsgroups were the earliest form of social media. They were essentially electronic bulletin boards where someone starts a thread or topic or ask a question and people respond to the question.
I was married at the time, but often felt lonely, depressed, and isolated. My former, now deceased wife, Peggy, was very ill with cancer at that time, and I wanted, and needed to find someone outside of our relationship, and my normal social circles to become “pen-pals” with–preferably with a male who lived in Europe. I wanted to discuss news, books, music, culturally different ways of doing things, anything to help alleviate the sense of loneliness and isolation that I was experiencing at that time.
I use, “against all odds,” because that particular day was the very first time that either one of us had ever read or posted to any newsgroups. With over 40,000 newsgroups available at that time, each one with potentially hundreds of postings from people and even more responses to those postings, the odds of my choosing that one particular newsgroup where her post resided, to peruse all the postings, then notice hers, read it, and then respond to it, rather than just pause and scan or just scroll by, her particular posting were now more in favor of my winning the lottery! Several other people also responded to her posting, but she felt very touched by my heartfelt response, and wrote back immediately to thank me.
My marriage vows are something that I have always taken very seriously. If I had met Connie in person, locally, I would not have befriended her to the same level or in the same way that I did online. Once I knew that our interaction was going to be a regular event, which occurred after approximately 3-5 email messages, I found it necessary to express what my terms were going to be in order for us to continue interacting. I told her that my original goal was to befriend a man, not a woman. I also let her know that I was not interested in any type of online sex or email sex, and that I would terminate our friendship immediately if she ever tried to move us in that direction. I also promised her that I would offer her the same courtesy and security. She heartily accepted my terms, much to my delight, and this helped me to relax and enjoy my new friendship without feeling guilty that I was engaging in an act of infidelity.
We began sending little emails about our day to one another pretty quickly. I found that this new friendship was everything I had hoped for and needed at the time. We “talked” about everything–weather, politics, relationships, work, travel, personal goals and dreams, family issues, our childhoods, and our friends. As time progressed, the subject matter grew increasingly more personal. Eventually, there was no subject that was left undiscussed, including my feelings and sadness about my fathers’ untimely death that May, as well as my wife’s worsening condition and her subsequent death in November of that year.
For ten months we exchanged over 400 email communications, becoming very close friends before finally meeting face-to-face for the first time on Jan 2, 1997.
Although we became good, close friends, I would be misleading you if I let you think that we managed to escape any of the problems that people who interact encounter as they develop a lasting relationship with one another. Not only did we encounter problems such as the usual disagreements that people have, but there were some problems that were unique to our unusual relationship simply because of the electronic medium we employed to facilitate our interaction.
Most prominent were obstacles in accomplishing goals that are normally a function of the presentation of self that wouldn’t be encountered by someone interacting with others who are physically present. Face-to-face interaction between people normally includes having the benefit of many visual cues that can be ascertained from body language in combination with a myriad of auditory cues. Eye contact, tone of voice, choice of words, posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, overall emotional affect, as well as spacial proximity relative to each other. All of these cues are readily available to us, and we have learned to rely on them while presenting ourselves to others. Collectively, they combine to convey the status of each person’s presentation, with each one effectively becoming a barometer for gauging and fine tuning the other.
These benefits were something I had mostly taken for granted or not paid much attention to while interacting with others in conventional ways. The disadvantages of their total absence quickly became apparent to me once my email relationship with Connie ensued.
None of the conventional cues were available to me! For all practical purposes I was deaf and blind. I hadn’t met her yet, and we did not exchange pictures of one another, EVER, ahead of our initial face to face meeting. The only real cues that I could utilize as a barometer to enable me to better define the situation and gauge my presentation of self had to be extracted from the text of her responses.
This wasn’t as simple or straight forward as it might seem to be. Without the usual cues, the only information that could be gleaned from the text consisted of the usual or customary meanings associated with the words used within the context they were presented. Further, they had to be taken completely at face value. Anything beyond that surface interpretation often resulted in misunderstandings about the true nature of what had been conveyed or misconstrued meanings. A simple attempt at humor or lighthearted ribbing was, at times, mistaken as a serious slight against the other requiring several email messages to correctly clarify.
In person, my wedding ring, coupled with my demeanor, would have presented this important value to her without me having to necessarily verbalize my wishes in writing. This illustrates the largely automatic process of the conveyance of information symbolically, non-linguistically, that we all engage in when presenting ourselves to others. Its significant role in our interactional processes cannot be underscored adequately enough in my opinion.
Interacting with Connie via email taught me just how significant it is when all information I wanted to share with her had to be conveyed using the alternative symbols of only written language. At times, I found this lack of visual cues burdensome. I longed to be able to just simply verbalize what I wanted to say to Connie. I also longed to know what she looked like.
Additional information, like my wedding ring, Connie’s choice of clothes, the amount of or lack of any makeup she wore, my hairstyle, her length of hair, our weight and shape, or how tall or short we were all closely relate to body language, but are no less important. Such information is available when people interact in person, and serve as an additional basis for the assessments that we all impose on one another as we interact. This assessment process is usually made internally, and is unspoken, as is our judgements based on the outcome of such assessments.
This internalization spares us from having to disclose to one another that we are taking part in such activities. It also tricks us into believing that the other person has no idea that they are being assessed–we assume this because we know that others cannot read our minds. Sometimes, we purposely let them know that we are assessing them in an attempt to manipulate their behavior as a function of the nature of our assessment. I believe this is why so many people, despite their claims to the contrary, deeply care about what others think of them.
Because of their self-awareness regarding their own thoughts and assessment processes regarding others, people attempt to elicit positive assessments by others employing impression management techniques that include mustering the best “presentation of self ” possible. Any deviation away from a positive presentation would be relative to the value they placed on the person they were presenting to.
The lack of these additional visual cues precluded my ability to assess Connie in the usual global manner. All information normally ascertained globally could only be obtained through ask and answer processes, or by first offering information, then waiting for a response. It also prevented me from being able to compare her to others who seemed similar to her in conduct, mannerism, or appearance.
Applying untested stereotypes without any picture of her, other than imagined, was virtually impossible. By the time it may have been possible to accomplish this with only minimal risk of disrupting the development of our relationship, I already had ascertained, what later proved to be, a very accurate, solid concept of who she was.
However, on a better note, the lack of visual cues or any real means of a more thorough, global assessment allowed me to be able to focus on sharing my thoughts and feelings, clarifying my presentation of self without any of the usual distractions these cues might have created under normal circumstances. Now, all of my energy could be devoted to fully engaging in our “conversations,” without any leakage of energy being occupied with self-conscious policing of my behavior. All of my attention to detail was directed towards the crafting of my words so that I could be readily understood and not easily misunderstood.
Many people faced with a similar set of circumstances, realizing their ability to present themselves in a completely favorable light, might overemphasize their positive attributes or even engage in blatant lying when presenting themselves, and many do just that. They treat those they interact with online with less respect because they don’t necessarily consider those they interact with as real people with feelings.
I realized that I had this opportunity, but I have never been a liar, and wasn’t about to start then. Furthermore, I knew that honesty is liberating and uncomplicated. I also knew that dishonesty has the way of the boomerang and, therefore, is always a risky activity. In this respect, the email format of interaction proved to be just like any normal interactional encounter in person–the issue of honesty being a choice one has to make when presenting oneself to another. Moreover, I realized that within this format of interaction I could disclose far more than I might have in person within an equivalent unit of time, especially since my motives were strictly honorable.
The email format of interaction allowed me to enjoy a freedom not normally available in this respect, and at a level I had never before experienced.
Technology has indeed created new choices for interacting with one another. However, computers–beyond giving us an unprecedented ability to access and interact with people across many cultures–has, for the most part, only improved the speed at which some of our mail arrives and made neatness, correct grammar usage, and proper spelling easier to accomplish.
The burden of all that we need to attend to in achieving reciprocal understanding still lies with us, which, in my opinion, can often be accomplished more efficiently in conventional ways, but not necessarily more qualitatively.
Ironically, even though my messages to Connie could arrive in her email box seconds after they were sent, the format itself forced me to slow down and become far more mindful regarding my interactions with her. As difficult as it seemed at the time, it taught me a lot about myself, and the dynamics of interaction, eventually culminating with my marriage to her, which is still going strong over 25 years later.