I turned up late at a party a few years ago. It was a curious experience, as I seemed to be the only sober person in the room, and because I was driving I had to stay that way. The mood of the group, under the influence of generous quantities of alcohol, was of course, loud, humorous and uninhibited. What I found odd, though, was how I responded to the situation by becoming a little dysinhibited myself. It was as though I had taken on the group dynamic, perhaps through subconsciously evaluating the degree to which my behaviour could be more relaxed since it would be subjected to less scrutiny. I felt distinctly less shy than usual about playing guitar in public too, almost as though I’d taken a small dose of a sedative drug.
What can we learn from this odd little episode? That people adjust their behaviour to conform to standards which they anticipate others expect would hardly be extraordinary news, since the idea of having a ‘theory of mind’ is very well-known. Many other mammals, including various apes, whales and dolphins, and perhaps some birds including parrots and corvids, also appear to have a theory of mind, in that they seem capable of forming opinions about the opinions of other individuals of their own species, and in some cases of other species too.
What surprised me, though, was that the sensation of being slightly inebriated was quite realistic, apart from costing my hosts nothing and leaving me entirely sober when it came time to drive home. And even then, I had to concentrate for a moment as I got into my car, to remind myself that my blood alcohol level was in fact zero, and to adjust my expectations of my own behaviour accordingly.
This brings me to Facebook, which is another situation where social feedback systems are obtunded, short-circuited or otherwise interfered with. The stark brevity of a posting leaches meaning and nuance from the message, often leaving both the sender and receiver of the text in a state of perplexity: what was really meant? Is the message sarcastic, humorous, over-intense? Much sleep may be lost in ruminating over such questions, even by mature persons, and one hates to think what suffering may be caused through semiotic uncertainty or social anxiety on the part of teenagers and children for whom these media provide a large proportion of their exposure to interpersonal relations.
There are even darker considerations, though. Partly through my original nature but to an extent as a result of the situations I commonly found myself in as part of my job, in adult life I discovered an ability to read with a fair degree of sensitivity the mind-states of other people. I found this a very confusing and difficult characteristic to manage in early life; there was simply far more information coming in than I could possibly handle. However, in the Facebook situation, the absence of subtle feedback gives rise to a curious disconnected feeling of having suffered a cut in EIQ, so that I seem on occasions to become as lacking in emotional reciprocity as someone with Asperger’s Syndrome.
So I remain in a bit of a quandary. It’s difficult to post anything contentious or friendly-but-firm on FB without running a considerable risk of appearing sarcastic or unfriendly, and even appearing to be willing to take that risk may in itself give other people cause for concern. The alternative though is that FB won’t achieve its full potential as a means of enriching and augmenting social contact if it’s seen as unsafe to use for anything other than saccharine & superficial purposes. Supportive posting doesn’t have to be eternally patting people on the back, but the question is, can purely ‘abstract’ FB friendships ever be strong enough to support friendship of the kind that develops after people have known each other personally for decades?
© Donnie Ross 2011
