mind over matters

We cannot underestimate the complexity of our social communication with others and the deep effect it has on our emotional development. When another person is live before us in the flesh, we are bombarded by a range of input from the individual (body language, conveyed emotions, suppressed ones, created dialogue) this is weighed up against our own output (prior knowledge of the current situation and predicted emotional response from the other, deep sustained ideas and knowledge of the individual from the past, our own agenda with concerns to that person, our own psychological temperament at that given time) what occurs is a most rich and unique interaction.

Relationships we attempt to re-create over the Internet are effectively retarded by the physical lack of the individual in our space. The Internet essentially stops an emotional reactional feedback loop from cycling through. It cuts off access to the full extent of the input required to move through to another mental position in the loop. This loop is necessary for a rhythmic emotional state that allows a healthy attachment/detachment with another person. The retardation caused here creates a mental standstill, ‘if I can’t form a ‘reality script’ of the situation from my intuition in the presence of the individual how do I piece together their character and the nature of their attentions?’ In our efforts to resolve this standstill our minds return to our mental safety net, fantasy.

We visualise fictitious situations where the person is a real bodily presence in our lives. We dream of the future because our nature states that a ‘disconnected connection’ will never be enough, eventually we long for a physical presence. The lure of this kind of relationship is it is at once immensely self indulgent and satisfying, we have the chance to mediate our reactions towards that person which alleviates the pressure of potential unguarded negative projections, we also build tension and intensity of desire through longing and forced restraint.

The concern here is that we become so self indulgent that we immerse ourselves completely in our online connections or our highly mediated fantasy replica connections. This can lead to a retraction from real world connections which are overwhelmingly complex and taxing by comparison, yet exponentially more rewarding by aiding a healthy continuum of the emotional progressional loop.

Posted in: Internet, philosophy, spain on Friday, April 16, 2010 at at 8:22 AM