Digital Bodies: new dimensions to physicality, or lack thereof

Retrieved from "Adventures through the Google Glass,"
BBH LABS, 2011.

In the mid-twentieth century canadian sociologist Erving Goffman proposed the idea that human social interaction was very much like a theatrical play. "Actors" interacted following a set script known to all, and a "back stage" allowed individual actors to practice their lines and rest when they were not in one of the several "front" stages playing what they practiced. 

Everything is calculated, everything rehearsed and measured. There are expectations. Any deviation from the script would cause distress, fear, anxiety at not being sure what to do next.

But Goffman could have never predicted the upsurge of online interaction as a new, more perfect and multifaceted form of playing these scripts, one that takes away the awkwardness of potential deviances, and flows in a more chronometric, measured way. One that leaves away the physicality of encounters and focuses on an orchestrated interplay.

As I mentioned in the previous post, online "We learn to hold different "fronts" for the different ways of social interaction we engage in. One person becomes three, four, five, as we navigate our way through the web." 

Goffman would be amazed.

How these new capabilities of "inventing" ourselves impact our perception of identity is yet to be determined, but, contrary to what many suggest, I don't believe it gives us real freedom or that it fosters "deeper relations."

Why? 

In his 2012 article, "Digital Bodies," Liuan Chen Huska exposes a current thinking that online worlds free people from the constraints of their own physical bodies. The author cites studies that show users believed "online relationships as more pure and intimate than those in real life." 

Retrieved from "Digital v. In-Person Relationships,"
The Hourglass Blog, 2011.

"Just being online eliminates the physical entanglement that comes with having the extra physical side to deal with," one user remarked, melting Goffman's back and front stages together in an abstract form of measured, "you-know-what-I-want-you-to-know" sort of world.

But humans, whether we like it or not, whether we are comfortable in our own flesh or not, are both a personality (soul, spirit, etc.) and a body. Physicality, as blunt as it may sound, is perhaps the most real aspect of our being. It is tangible.

How exactly does this, "a-physicality" of the online world (be them sentimental, professional, etc.) foster better relationships? How does concealing the visible aspect of our being benefits society because stereotypes are disproven?

There is a fine line between being part of this constant play and getting to the point where socialization is absolutely and completely absorbed by the theatrics of measured interactions. A possible supremacy of "digital bodies" crosses that line shamelessly. 

At a time when our beings have become increasingly digital, taking up more "fronts" and  spilling our identities through social media sites, online networks and what-not, we need to start considering the consequences new forms of socialization have on our perceptions of self and society.