Reflections on my virtual life
I’m 27 years old. That means I’m old enough to remember what it was like before computers but young enough to have been impacted by their pervasiveness during my adolescence.
At the tender age of 13 I started living a virtual life along with my already awkward and confusing physical life. Over the next few years my self-esteem and identity would be crafted by the experiences I had in both worlds. (Who am I kidding? This is still happening…)
The AIM Era
It all started with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). AIM let me know exactly how many friends I had, what they were doing, and anything else revealed in their “Buddy Info.” I knew whenever I got blocked that my friend was much angrier than I thought (and would write a letter in my physical life to help mend our relationship). Countless hours were spent re-reading my crush’s information like I was cracking a code for the CIA. (“Is that song lyric meant for me?”) And when he’d message me with the usual “wasup?” I would get a rush of adrenaline and casually reply, “not much. you?”
My time outside of school was spent on AIM validating my relationships. The feedback was instant and I was hooked. I have cried, yelled, and laughed all alone in a room, immersed in my virtual life made up of chat boxes and a buddy list.
The MySpace Era
Near the end of high school I graduated to MySpace. Now, not only did I know how many friends I had but I knew how I ranked among them—I can’t even begin to describe the social wars sparked over that “Top Friends” feature. But the biggest difference was that I didn’t hide behind a silly screen name anymore. I was on MySpace representing myself with photos and a resume quality ‘About’ section. Around this time my friends started driving, we all had cellphones and everyone spent more time in person and less time at home on the computer. Myspace fit this model because it was more about sending your friend a message, going to do something, and coming back later to see if they responded. I didn’t need that instant feedback anymore. AIM became more about making plans or late night conversations with one or two people, a far cry from the social frenzy of my youth.
By the time I started college I was getting overwhelmed by the flexibility of MySpace. I would spend hours in over my head with code trying to perfect my profile page. All of a sudden my virtual life was a hassle. I had to have the right look, populate my interests with the right stuff and keep up with the trends, like having music play when my profile loaded. (“Ugh, which song should I use?!”) Thankfully, Facebook entered the picture and I was quickly on board. Now I could use my time on more important things.
The Facebook Era
At the time, my physical life was all about parties, hanging out, and the general debauchery that happens when you don’t have a curfew for the first time. Facebook became the glue that kept a group of recently introduced strangers together. Since it was exclusive to college kids, we didn’t think twice about posting drunken photos, announcing house parties, and accepting friend requests from people we hardly recognized. This was the heyday of my virtual life, and I look back on it fondly.
As I progressed through college I got in a serious relationship, became more focused on my schoolwork, started thinking about landing my first job and Facebook was maturing alongside me. It opened up to the public and for the first time my virtual life came with a new kind of baggage; I was interacting with a diverse audience that had access to an archive of my crazy life over the past 4 years.
The Segmented Social Era
Since my adolescence was paralleled by the growth of mainstream computer usage, I grew up trying to figure out what it meant to have both a physical and virtual life. Reacting to Facebook’s uncomfortable evolution towards a public and open platform, I naturally gravitated towards broadcasting facets of my physical life into separate virtual worlds.
For example, I love documenting my 10 month old daughter and Instagram gives me a small audience that has requested to view those kind of photos. I even have a pregnancy support group that I keep in touch with by using a hashtag, we can see each other’s babies but still retain some anonymity. In contrast, Twitter is my all access pass to the most popular experts in my field. I would never post a picture of my daughter there. I’m only tweeting and networking with people related to my profession.
While I still use Facebook, it’s a weird combination of selective Instagram and Twitter posts (or directing people to interesting links). I feel safer posting personal content to Facebook from my other distinct virtual worlds because I still haven’t figured out how to act around the clash of social circles and comfort levels that make up my current “friends” list. In the end, what I’m experiencing and contributing to is an unnerving sense of virtual déjà vu. I go to Instagram and see the same pictures I just finished scrolling through on Facebook (and if that person is related to my profession, it will show up a third time on my Twitter feed).
I want to go back to a simpler and cohesive virtual experience. One where I don’t have to create fictional boundaries around various social sites for a sense of purpose and comfort. Meanwhile, our attempts at merging these worlds has resulted in inefficient (and annoying) redundancies. We have the potential of living freeing and immersive virtual lives, a life unbounded by all of the constraints we face in our physical life. We clearly have a long way to go, so I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
