"57% of people talk more online than they do in real life."
This statistic is about a year old (ask onlineschools.org) but it is new to me, and terrifyingly, probably even higher now. The implications have me reeling. What is going to happen to us if eventually, we stop talking in person all together?
I have this picture in mind of a 15 year old boy who wants to ask out a girl at school, but is so unpractised in actual human contact and communication, that he doesn't know what to say. She might not even recognize his attraction in the way that one does, because she's never had meaningful social interaction with anyone other than her family.
So he sends her a Facebook message. And she answers. How long does it take before they actually get up the nerve to meet in person?
And then there's the sex. (Not to jump ahead, but this is a blog post (believe me, I appreciate the irony here) and I've got to keep it short.)
Do the hormones still recognize their cue? Or will Facebook and its counterparts, in less than a quarter of a century, have us revert to some sort of medieval, celibate age where all eye contact and firm handshakes have died; where online bullying has replaced the playground scuffle, and love has been replaced with . . . "like."
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