How 'real' is online life to you?

Andrew Eldritch

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The recent discussions on entertainment and online identities got me thinking about the difference I experience between memories I have of things I did online and things I did in real life. Going to a concert with friends is a more valuable experience for me than watching a YouTube video of the same concert and playing a boardgame irl makes me happier and more fulfilled than playing an online game with friends. Reading shit on the computer or on my phone makes me feel less satisfied with myself than reading a book. There is a big difference for me between irl experiences and memories and online ones, with the online world feeling a lot less real and a lot less important. A lot of the issues that are hot topics online are non-existent for me when I go outside.

I'm especially curious how the post-coof zoomers experience this, you have spent part of your formative years online having classroom experiences and hanging out with friends instead of irl and you are all absorbed by your phones. Are the memories you have of things you did online as real to you as the things you did in the real world? Is there a difference between the two or is there an overlap? How important is the digital world to you?
 
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Collision

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Why would you differentiate? I'm always in the real world. Even right now. As I write this I'm sitting at my desk in front of my computer monitor. The desk is real. The monitor is real. My keyboard is real. I'm not sure where else you could be beside the real world. The time I spend using the internet is as real as the time I spend doing other things. I like activities that don't involve the internet (or a computer) and I like activities that do. Both provide me with experiences I value.
 
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Andrew Eldritch

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Why would you differentiate? I'm always in the real world. Even right now. As I write this I'm sitting at my desk in front of my computer monitor. The desk is real. The monitor is real. My keyboard is real. I'm not sure where else you could be beside the real world. The time I spend using the internet is as real as the time I spend doing other things. I like activities that don't involve the internet (or a computer) and I like activities that do. Both provide me with experiences I value.
I know that our conversation is 'real' as in my brain knows you are a real person somewhere in the world, and our conversation is real because it's stored somewhere on a physically existing hard drive. But still online life feels fake to me, or at least different. I stopped using social media because it bothered me how fake people where acting on it. From photoshopped pictures to only selectively sharing their best moments. In my community where I live we have a whatsapp group for the street and it regularly turns into a flaming dumpsterfire because people say shit they would never say to your face. And we all live together! When people are relatively anonymous it gets even worse (i.e. Twitter outrage). It's like the social constructs we have when we can look each other in the eye break down when we are communicating via a screen.
 
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Collision

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But still online life feels fake to me, or at least different.
It's all real.
photoshopped pictures
When you encounter people in physical spaces they are, often, wearing makeup. Many people have had cosmetic surgery. They style their hair and pick out clothing so that they appear more attractive than they would otherwise. People even tailor their choice of words, tone of voice, and posture to appear more appealing.
selectively sharing their best moments
I wonder how many people choose to share the story of how they were sexually assaulted in high school or how their drug addiction ruined their relationship with their children. Especially when they could share the story of how excited they were to graduate or how proud they were the day their son was born.
people say shit they would never say to your face
Then, perhaps, what they say online is closer to their true feelings than the persona they wear offline. At the very least the online persona is as real as the offline one.
It's like the social constructs we have when we can look each other in the eye break down when we are communicating via a screen.
What does this tell us about the social constructs?
 
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Chao Tse-Tung

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I feel like it's important to make the distinction, but I also somewhat agree with Collision. I guess my memories within the internet are in the same space in my brain as like vidya world building lore, but at the same time, unlike a video game, the experiences I've had on the internet can be very profound and real. I definitely get less fulfillment from playing an online game than an irl game and yadda-yadda, but conversations I have with other people online I remember mostly the same as conversations I have with people face-to-face. It's interesting to think about, I'll probably come back to this thread once I've parsed my own thoughts a little better.
 
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Andrew Eldritch

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It's all real.

When you encounter people in physical spaces they are, often, wearing makeup. Many people have had cosmetic surgery. They style their hair and pick out clothing so that they appear more attractive than they would otherwise. People even tailor their choice of words, tone of voice, and posture to appear more appealing.

I wonder how many people choose to share the story of how they were sexually assaulted in high school or how their drug addiction ruined their relationship with their children. Especially when they could share the story of how excited they were to graduate or how proud they were the day their son was born.

Then, perhaps, what they say online is closer to their true feelings than the persona they wear offline. At the very least the online persona is as real as the offline one.

What does this tell us about the social constructs?
I understand your point, but I still experience a difference between the two. Anonymity seems to erode the barrier between thought and speech. There are things you think that you don't say, but people apparently do want to share those thoughts with others if they can be anonymous. This can be sharing experiences with a social stigma to find support, or saying "GAYmer word" and threatening to murder someone. In the whatsapp group I mentioned there were several fights that caused days of enraged schizoposting in the app that were solved in 15 minuted when the people were face to face. That also tells something about the social constructs.
 
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An interesting question. When I was young I was convinced that people on the internet where more "real" as they shared their true opinions and were exposed to the collective knowledge of humanity (outside of real-identity social media like Facebook).

I thought that the internet managed to "shatter the veil" and overturn social restrictions/etiquette that led us to see the "true state of reality".

So as someone born in the early 2000s, communication on the internet felt more real and grounded to me.

As for my belief now, I am not really sure anymore. I still think that those who are not on the internet often live in blissful ignorance while we - "advanced internet users" were exposed to more information and thus have a better grasp to how reality works. Afterall, knowledge is power.

Truth to be told, the real world feel kinda fake to me - or atleast the interactions within it does. As people need to be "imperious" (not sure if this the right english term), people are casting illusions at each others to promote certains things.

On the internet, unless you are a messenger of a compagny or something, you are generally feel to say whatever you want. The only illusions casted being generally a profile picture.

Regardless, I think there is a massive disconect between the experience of "advanced internet users" and everyone else, for better or worse.
 

handoferis

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ngl, when I was in school and stuff during the heyday of internet, I definitely considered internet life the real life and real life as fake life, cause real life was where I went to have no agency over anything I was doing and just generally get forced to do shit I hated.

since growing up, it's largely felt the other way around
 
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I find that both are equally real to me. In meatspace however I am much more constrained. I feel that I express more of my true self on the internet than in "real" life, because I meet more people there, I can use the name I choose without it seeming weird, I sort my thoughts out better when writing, too.
I grew up in the 2000s and 2010s, lived my teens through the internet mostly. Spending most of my time chatting on discord and posting my art online (since deleted my account on deviantart). Had a social media phase but tbh, nah, I don't like it, I prefer to stick to messenger apps and forums, and of course, art sites. The closest and longest lasting friendships I've had were all on the internet. I didn't have to worry about moving and all because I could carry my friends in my pocket or laptop bag, literally. I moved a ton as a kid and thus rarely had anything that lasted more than a couple years.

The only thing that bothers me with virtual life is the lack of a physical body to hold on to. Human touch is just not something you can replicate, and even if I'm very good at imagining things (might have hyperphantasia?), it's still good to feel it... physically.
 
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SolidStateSurvivor

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Years ago it used to feel like the internet was this entirely separate entity with it's own culture, but that was before it became "serious business."

Unfortunately the net has become real to me in the sense that it has fostered ideological insanity that has found it's way into legislation and mainstream political rhetoric.

Additionally, there is a greater threat that one's rhetoric on the net can be used against them in the real world. Whereas I recall the net as this entity where inconvenient truths and socially frowned upon opinions can be freely expressed without meaningful stigmatization or consequences, the current trends are to punish digital "wrong think" in the form of un-personing and employer intimidation tactics. After giving society this sort of much needed outlet for venting, the attempts to regain control over that are upsetting.

The net has become too real, too ingrained in the real world. Arab Spring was made possible by normies utilizing mainstream social media. The mainstream net has become an overly commodified propganda outlet. From just a consumer/capitalist perspective, the amount of data advertisers are allowed to get from you and work off of to emotionally manipulate you into consooming is disgusting, and the worst part is that many people don't even realize the effects that subconsciously has on their psyche.

The net is too real, and it's influence upon the real world will only continue to grow, especially if augmented reality gains traction as the next evolution of it.
 
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The use of facades within Internet posts has become more pronounced with the rise of Web 2.0. There's a difference in how someone approaches an online interaction when anonymous vs connected to their real identity or even an online persona. Karma, for example.

Something else that comes to mind is how your mind treats an experience that is familiar versus how it treats something novel. When driving the same route everyday, for instance, a person's mind stops encoding the information into long term memory. LoL players experience the same thing with their games. The vast majority of it they'll forget unless something special happens in a game. Seems like the current way people consume the Internet (mindlessly scrolling social media on their phones) would produce the same effect.

If you're not really remembering what you do on the Internet because its just routine, I'd argue it could cause the Internet to feel less real than real life.
 
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jaedaen

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The fulfillment of human social needs is satisfied on a spectrum, as far as I can tell. In order of least fulfilling to most fulfilling:

Asynchronous text based communication (like this forum) -> Synchronous text based communication (real time, like our chat) -> Voice only communication -> Video Chat -> Face to Face

The jump between Video chat to Face to Face is the largest social needs fulfillment leap I think.

It's not quite as simple as this though, communication lower on the fulfillment scale has some advantages. Asynchronous text based communication allows for a lot of thought and planning to get put in to communication, which can be helpful. People feel 'less real' via text as well, which can allow people that are guarded in real life to open up more. Of course, this does cause people to have a higher chance of being an asshole to someone, because they don't 'feel real'. We weren't genetically adapted to live in this world, we were adapted to life in hunter gatherer communities for the world of tens of thousands+ years ago.

For me, Face to Face communication is always preferable and I love it, but it's a lot more emotional effort for sure. There are so many more social cues to read, so much non verbal communication, etc...

Online communication is kind of the fast food of communication, delicious, cheap, convenient, but if it's all you live off of, you're going to kind of feel like shit.

I say this as someone that grew up in the 80s though. I imagine if you grew up with all of this, maybe it feels different to you.
 
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zalaz alaza

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only place i can find people to talk about things that interest me is here. real life or on the internet. felt like a heavy burden removed from my shoulders to interact w people here. im a geezer who has no real life friends now. bums me out id really like to engage with real life people about things like aesthetics and the arts or whatever else.
 
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Its a part of the real life much like the postal system brought together the world and made communication much faster and easier. Its an evolution of communication where now some idiot on the other side of the world can read my posts with negligible delay. In a sense its open communication to everyone on the planet and only those who know-of and are interested care to read and ever few care to reply.

With that said, the flood of information on the net is also its downfall. The vast majority, maybe even including this post, is worthless junk only seen by a very small subset. Almost negligible subset. Rounding error subset.

something about the 80/20 rule, well only 20% of net content is actively seen/used by 80% of the net. The rest, for the vast majority of users, might as well not exist.
 
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SaddamH2006

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The recent discussions on entertainment and online identities got me thinking about the difference I experience between memories I have of things I did online and things I did in real life. Going to a concert with friends is a more valuable experience for me than watching a YouTube video of the same concert and playing a boardgame irl makes me happier and more fulfilled than playing an online game with friends. Reading shit on the computer or on my phone makes me feel less satisfied with myself than reading a book. There is a big difference for me between irl experiences and memories and online ones, with the online world feeling a lot less real and a lot less important. A lot of the issues that are hot topics online are non-existent for me when I go outside.

I'm especially curious how the post-coof zoomers experience this, you have spent part of your formative years online having classroom experiences and hanging out with friends instead of irl and you are all absorbed by your phones. Are the memories you have of things you did online as real to you as the things you did in the real world? Is there a difference between the two or is there an overlap? How important is the digital world to you?
As someone who spent inordinate amounts of time in video games and discord during pandemic, i can say it felt real, and fulfilling, and all encompassing at the time because i had no other social outlet besides online class and shitters at my shit job.
As soon as things opened up and i went back to college it feels like a dream, because I know i was just sitting around.
But the interesting thing is that the PEOPLE i made connections with, even if we went our separate ways, I remember. I remember how they type, who they were, their pfp's at the time, the same as I would any other friend. I dont miss them, to be honest I miss the dynamic my favorite discord server had - very active, exciting, fun! but i replaced it with real friends and activities again.
The digital world is important in the sense that we project ourselves into it and make something new - i can test ideas, personas, and writing styles online I cant at my actual job, or with real people, right? And i know your real, but this is two shadow puppets on a wall talking right now. You and I arent really here. If anything i learned to value real life by over-indulging in discord for a few months during early lockdowns before I could go back to work, when it added nearly no value to my life, except for a raw need for friendly social contact.
Interestingly i completely abandoned my old online persona, just because like you say, things that mattered in certain circles stopped mattering to me when I was spending all my time with friends, dating, working, and studying again. It was like closing the door of a place you never want to go to again.
 
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If I attend a live concert the sum of the experience is far greater than watching a recording of the same concert at home.
I'm there with friends, there is a pre-concert gathering, trepidation, maybe you do some drugs (I don't, but many of my friends do).
Then there is the concert itself, the musicians and or DJs are right there, you're there, you're dancing or jumping or just enjoying the music but you're there in a crowd all sharing a moment of music. You feel the sound system, the lights, the heat and the cold.
And after the cheers are over and the concert is finished the end motions begin, you walk out and maybe continue the party elsewhere.

It is maybe no less real than the TV and speakers at home playing the recording are real, but the experience is much less involved. Even if you have friends over and are getting drunk and high at home it isn't the same.
Adrenaline is also shown to be key in forming long term memories, in general things that are novel and give you a big rush you tend to experience more lively and create more lasting memories.

I have spent tens of thousands of hours gaming online, I have had many great moments with friends, tournaments and alone.
Yet still, the amount of memories I can recall on a whim of all those hours? Basically nothing.
Contrast with less time spent hanging out with friends or doing things in "real life", yes I have also forgotten most of it, but I have way more memories and they are also way more intense.
The internet is Not less real, it's just less involved.
 

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The recent discussions on entertainment and online identities got me thinking about the difference I experience between memories I have of things I did online and things I did in real life. Going to a concert with friends is a more valuable experience for me than watching a YouTube video of the same concert and playing a boardgame irl makes me happier and more fulfilled than playing an online game with friends. Reading shit on the computer or on my phone makes me feel less satisfied with myself than reading a book. There is a big difference for me between irl experiences and memories and online ones, with the online world feeling a lot less real and a lot less important. A lot of the issues that are hot topics online are non-existent for me when I go outside.

I'm especially curious how the post-coof zoomers experience this, you have spent part of your formative years online having classroom experiences and hanging out with friends instead of irl and you are all absorbed by your phones. Are the memories you have of things you did online as real to you as the things you did in the real world? Is there a difference between the two or is there an overlap? How important is the digital world to you?
Does online feel as real as IRL? Hardly. I have a fair amount of internet memories, good talks and late nights gaming, but my real formative memories are all in person.

Now is one better than the other? Who's to say, we're all different. Personally I'd love a world where the internet has zero real value to it and is just a novelty like it used to be, but it's a bit late for that isn't it?
 
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RealTomCruise

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I don't have any reasoning to back the claim on the disconnect I have between the Internet and being in person but I have always had the gut feeling there's a hard barrier between them. I have never had any real presence online under my real name (shocker I'm not actually Tom Cruise) so there's never been that attachment, my only presence is through a web of shitposting accounts spread through the web, Agora and small discords with friends are the sole places where I am feel I am capable of being genuine and putting time into any posts (and even then the majority of time in both is unmitigated shitposting).

I think the more you grew up with the modern web the more you see it as a intrinsic part of yourself, having a foundation of the concept of it all as being posting at least some side of your life on it to real life friends, and as a result later on of seeing random people as connected to your personal life. At one point I laughed at the idea of people being emotionally invested enough to be offended on the internet but I realized I am a fairly slim part of the population where neither the core concept of the Internet is incomprehensible or the internet has been seen as personal throughout your life. I feel that goes for quite a range of people interested in Y2K web stuff as well.
 
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