Why Do We Chat Online?
Version 3.0 (English and Scholastic)
I initially held that online chat was a ridiculous or even humiliating thing for us human beings. Some sort of unhealthy status of the modern human relations makes people resort to communication with strangers without the apprehension that they might have to undertake certain consequences. This view might be a little radical, though. But isn��t it somewhat perverse to replace the natural language patent to human beings with strokes on the keyboard in front of a flickering screen? In my eyes, it reflects a frenzied passion for Internet to put everything in our life online. I doubted how wise it was.
In a discussion about Internet with a few other writers for Xin Min Evening IT section, I still felt the same when a lady raved about her love for online chat. ��Meaningless.�� I thought to myself. But the next day, while I was downloading software, I visited a famous chat room in Shanghai and thus started the first session of online chat in my life. I meant to confirm my point of view.
Shortly, someone began to ��talk�� to me. In this chat room full of strangers represented by all kinds of strange nicknames, it was not bad to be greeted friendly; at least better than getting no response at all after I said ��hello�� many times without an aim. (Though nobody knew me here, a cold shoulder could have caused me some discomfort anyway.) It was a waste of time in greetings like ��are you a student or a professional?��. But sometimes, I might find somebody with similar interests. I went into a discussion with a person on a physics lecture I attended and soon the topic shifted to the concept of universe, a forever intriguing problem for philosophers. Or I talked about sushi with a person claiming Japan to be his place of birth. In other cases, I would end a chat with someone whose primary concern turned out to be those dirty things.
I sat still in front of the PC without uttering a word, without looking around, except with many strokes on the keyboard. It was so weird that I didn��t even know who the person was in spite of such a long chat and probably we would never meet again. I stepped into the garden after getting offline, where the flowers and grass looked so real in the sunshine that they seemed almost unreal to me. To the ancient people, online chat was indeed unconceivable. And I also found it quite unaccustomed in retrospection. There must be a strong motivation driving me, unclear as it may initially appear. Originally, I just wanted to feel how stupid and meaningless online chat was. But how come that I, or more generally, people just go on with online chat like that?
Granted, thanks to the advance in science and technology, now we have more options of communication means than ever �� vis-a-vis talk, letter, telephone, fax, mobile phone, pager, email and instant message (like ICQ, MSN messenger etc.). It follows that we have more chances to communicate almost whenever we want. (There is even concern over the shrinking of privacy at that.) But why do we participate in online chat where the other party is usually a randomly selected stranger, instead of a chat in the traditional sense with a ready acquaintance?
Possible Motivation No.1: Curiosity. Curiosity is one psychological drive why human beings have been exploring the unknown and/or searching for betterment of life. Curiosity is also the force that allures some good people to wrongdoings with its evil charm. But no matter what, curiosity for the same object is not long-lasting; it disappears quickly when you get to know about or get used to what has aroused your interest. Online chat is new to many, but curiosity cannot be the primary reason why a large number of non-new users are persistently addicted to it. There should be factors with longer effect.
Possible Motivation No.2: Loneliness. Interpersonal communication accompanies the progress of human civilization. Human beings are a bunch of social animals. Communication has allowed people to exchange ideas and work together since primitive times. If communication is deprived, most people feel somewhat oppressed and lonely. One theme of the modern literature, such as Kakfa��s Metamorphosis, is the alienation between human beings. Literature is more or less a reflection of society. Most people long for expressing their views and feelings to someone else for advice, understanding or merely psychological release. But in this modern society, what if you simply cannot trust anyone to confide to or that reliable person you have found doesn��t have the time or interest in listening? In the online chat room, however, there will always be people willing to listen and in the mean time ready to tell. People don��t know each other so there is generally no worry for the revelation of certain information, which is perhaps extremely private. When privacy cannot be pinned down to a specific head, it is not privacy anymore.
Possible Motivation No. 3: Unmaskedness and ease of telling lies. Initially we may take the chat room as a place full of masked people. It affords people the possibility of telling lies without being easily recognized, but this also means people can say whatever they want. If unmaskedness refers to people��s real feeling and intention instead of facts, it is a concept different from lie. On further consideration, chat room is a place where people don��t have to wear ANY mask. Without the masks, people are not the way they usually appear. Quite a few decent-looking people are actually not decent, such as a high-ranking guy in Disney who turned out to be a criminal cheating a little girl known at the chat room. I don��t mean crimes committed to online acquaintances like cheat, rape, robbery or murder are entirely online chat��s fault; the credulity of the victims is certainly a contributor. Yet there are also cases in which not-so-good people have good sense, like the hero played by Kevin Costner in Perfect World. As for other ordinary people in the chat room, they can just take off the face put up for the sake of making a living in real life. Here you don��t have to smile to your boss when you hate him. And to say some thing bad about him will not cause you danger of being fired.
Possible Motivation No. 4: Boredom. This may overlap with the above three motivations: You might be bored and have nothing to do, so you don��t mind having a try at the ��curious�� online chat. You might be lonely, so online chat might disperse some of the boredom mixed with loneliness. You might be bored with the mask you wear so you want to refresh in the chat room. Internet has become a more and more indispensable part of life for many both in work and leisure. It holds an appeal of abundance and exploration. Frequently we are led to unexpected interesting information from the original site. Therefore, many people just get online to while time away. Online chat is even simpler than surfing; you don��t even have to move, yet it is less passive than TV. If you are lucky, you might have a very constructive and entertaining chat with somebody. If not, you might just encounter dull or even wicked people. Anyway, time is killed. Online chat, therefore, can be taken as an alternative way of pastime, just like PC games. You interact with people in a virtual manner, instead of games designed by people. What you get from this pastime can be more unpredictable, though.
The 4 possible motivations that I find about online chat, after my analysis of the human minds and needs, all fall into a gray area. They point out the unhappy dissatisfaction of the mankind in the modern world.
However, online chat still brings to us some benefits. First, the uncertainty and random-selectedness contained in online chat significantly enhances the communication range geographically and otherwise. This was totally impossible by other communication means before. Though the probability is low and just by coincidence, one may really find someone of the same interest and cultural background from a much larger pool of choices. Those chat rooms categorized according to the topics can help serve this end. Sometimes a community can come into being but the ties between the members are still very loose unless they go out of the cyberspace. So the virtual community-building is a complement to its real-life counterpart, but not a replacement. Second, online chat room technology can be used in special situations. It saves a lot of time and cost, when utilized in online distance education. A discussion can be carried out in real time in the chat room, though the face-to-face debate will be much more attractive. Some web sites invite stars and other famous people to the chat room to communicate with their fans. This chat is almost an interview conducted by the fans, and the correct distance in between and technology involved will ensure the order so that it can carry on. But apparently this online chat room technology ignores the need of those without Internet access and shuts them out of this way of leisure and work. For them, they have no choice as to chat online or not. If online chat continues to prevail, we must also understand what this means in the long run.
Online chat has the power to isolate us and bring us together. Will it ultimately be a disappointment or a bless? As technology advances and gets commercialized, human communication methods have undergone changes greatly. As indicated in a paper by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (www.perinternet.org), telephone system was initially invented for business and professions on emergencies but when it became widely-applied, telephone began to be a domestic tool for sociability for its convenience and directness. Many people lamented for the loss of written correspondence, since less time devoted to writing meant less commitment to the relationship and too much directness meant the loss of beauty of implied feelings. With the online chat and other means of Internet communications, a renaissance of writing seems to be on its come-back but actually the commitment involved is even less. Internet is likely to follow the model of telephone. It was initially used in commerce and research but soon it penetrated and permeated our daily life. Many people now prefer emails to phone calls. It seems that people tend to put less and less commitment in interpersonal relationships. Due to the convenience Internet provides, the frequency of communication rises but the quality of every session of communication falls. Generally speaking, online chat is an extreme form, because it focuses on the relationship with strangers while email, telephone and letter are usually targeted anyway.
To say whatever exists is reasonable might meet some disapproval. But online chat has reasons to exist. Furthermore, more and more chat rooms are popping up all over the Internet. Besides, various kinds of communication software such as ICQ are additionally enhanced with online chat function. People satisfy their curiosity, disperse their loneliness, take off their masks and kill their time in online chat. As long as certain number of people still want to chat online, it will continue with its existence. But if the status quo of the human condition is so deplorable that people don��t trust those they know and in turn have to fulfil their human needs in a faceless one-dimensional stranger-to-stranger interaction, maybe this new form of communication temporarily works out. But it is by no means a total solution. It is just a make-shift.
It is thought-provoking in exploring the motivations and consequences of online chat. Throughout history, science and technology has brought to us so much welfare but sometimes its social implication is beyond our direct observation and prediction. The worst case will be science and technology beyond our control. The disasters depicted in Hollywood sci-fi movies are sensationally exaggerated. But as early as 1800s, Mary W. Shelley already expressed her concern in the novel Frankenstein. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite for mining, but it turned out to be in wide use in wars. Online chat might not be so life-threatening, but it is still something we should study carefully, since Internet is impacting and transforming our life so immensely with its interaction with the real world. Maybe online chat is not so much a ridiculous or even humiliating thing for us human beings as I initially thought. But I reserve my right in endorsing it. Everything is dialectic and so is science and technology. What we can do is to examine it carefully and make sure that it is not abused but used to a good end.
Note:
This article is based on my essay published in September, 2000, in IT section of Xin Min Evening, the largest evening newspaper in China with a daily circulation of 1.5 million. The essay invited much discussion from the readers in the following month until the editor said ��enough!��. It is intellectually exciting to see in the newspaper that so many people frankly put forward their opinions and wrote about their own experience, all somewhat initiated by me. In this English and longer version, I would like to explore this topic further.
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