danger of virtual when there is not enough real

I love technology because it makes communication very easy, cheap & accessible and I love communication.  Communication is the bridge that links us with other humans.  However recently I have noted a danger with virtual connections when there is no live or real interface.  It seems we need a balance between virtual & real so that technology can continue to serve our humanity.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

As humans we all share a basic vulnerability and in the real world it is easy to identify that vulnerability.  Our vulnerabilities bump & collide with each other and compassion both for our human lot and the other is born.  We then can choose how we interact and treat these fellow humans.  So that our communities don’t degenerate into anarchy & we totally destroy each other, we each have responsibility for a moral code in how we treat each other.  Some of the challenges about virtual:

1. The more removed we are from others the less we can intellectualize about how we treat them and avoid any negative feedback when we treat them badly.
2. The more removed we are from others the more we can imagine who they are & what they need & deserve rather than who they are for real.
3. The more removed we are from others the less we feel responsible for our behavior & actions because they appear unreal to us.

Here is a BBC video about Second Life and a happy ending about how virtual met real for one couple:

I found an article on the net called ‘Exploring Virtual Reality’ that focuses on the scientific:

Entering a sensorial universe means being exterior to a daily context. This artificial independence makes the fictive framework a protection against the contingencies of the exterior, such as the body. Unlike the frame of a painting, traditionally identified with the limits of the narrative space of the painting, or the frame of a theatrical scene, which determines the narrative space of a play, this new framework separates reality and virtuality into two mutually exclusive domains. The ecstasy of being disembodied reinforces this independence by stripping the subjects of their identities. But these interactive subjects — thinking subjects, marked by geography and culture — inevitably bring their cultural codes into the fictional space where transgressions are authorized. The virtual thus emerges as an ideal instrument for criticizing cultural codes. But, in order to produce such critical tensions between the real and the virtual, the fictive framework cannot be suppressed altogether. On the contrary, it is the task of interactive art to question the frame, to work on it so that a reciprocity between real space and virtual space can give rise to a reversible subjectivity.

see more Funny Graphs
Dan Ariely, who wrote Predictably Irrational did a couple of posts where you investigated what husbands and wives googled & what girlfriends and boyfriends googled with some funny results.

When choosing friends, partners & mates ‘virtual’ misses quite a lot, mainly what ‘real’ covers.  Humans need the real stuff that comes with live interactions, like smell, touch and sight to ensure that their relationships are healthy.  After all our senses & our instincts have been around for a lot longer than technology.  What is your take on this and your experiences in relationships with virtual and real, let me know in the comments.

I’d like to  leave you with a funny Aussie animated video about how important it is to keep balance between virtual & real so we don’t get caught out, enjoy…