YOUR DIGITAL PERSONALITY AFFECTS YOUR RELATIONSHIP

YOUR DIGITAL PERSONALITY AFFECTS YOUR RELATIONSHIP

A recent study says Indians are pushing back their sleep by over an hour, thanks to social media. So, what are all these people really doing online? Finding friends and partners on dating sites to matrimonial sites. But, there is a crucial question here: how authentic an image of yourself are you putting out there? Do your posts really reflect who you are? If the difference between your digital personality and your real self is huge, it’s bound to negatively affect your relationships. Taking a relationship offline, after forming it online, can make or break it. Reason: The person who texted you ‘love you’ 30 times a day, might not be saying it our loud even once.

ONLINE VS OFFLINE PERSONALITIES

This difference is plaguing the new age relationships. And, she does not just attribute this to the growing cyberspace, but also to the way Indians are brought up. “Have you ever seen your mom and dad kiss? That’s the way we Indians, the current generation, are brought up. It is not only natural that there’s a huge divide between whom we project ourselves to be online and who we really are! It is the story of every household. Your spouse will send you kisses on messages, but she will rarely kiss you in front of people. Those who can differentiate between those two personalities, get on with it. However, when it comes to young people trying to find love, they get easily confused. There’s an acute divide that we have not been taught to bridge. Virtual relationships lead us to exaggerated expectations which are often not fulfilled in real life. Thus, relationship issues to stress, depression, and anxiety.

EXPECTATION VS REALITY

The fact is, we live in an era that has somehow facilitated personality dissociation in us. We live out our fantasies through our social profiles. Our social media selves are the hyper-idealised versions of ourselves, which we are definitely not in real lives. And, when it comes to relationships, the husband culture has left us paranoid of taking our online selves to the real world and actually acknowledge them!   A lot of these issues manifest themselves in long distances relationships. “There’s a certain amount of relaxation when you cannot see the person you are talking to. So, couples in long distance relationships, who mostly communicate through chats, emails and even phone conversation, find it really difficult to open up to each other face-to-face. This happens because of a phenomenon called online disinhibition effect, which basically refers to the reduced inhibition when using remote electronic communication. So, the perception they form of the other person online is in direct conflict with her/his real persona. This causes misunderstanding, and thus, many relationships die premature deaths.

RESPONSE VS REACTION

Face-to-face conversation requires reactions. Take, for example, a heated argument. If you are being attacked on your face you would most probably react the same way, without thinking twice. When the entire thing happens online, you have time to step back, gauge your own reaction, weigh out the pros and cons and then respond, rather than react.

THE REASONS

1 Lack of accountability: The Internet makes people connect faster, but also on a more superficial level. The lack of accountability, because the other person cannot read our expressions, or voice, enables us with the excuse, ‘I never meant it that way ‘, and get away with it.

2 The urge to experiment: The digital world is still a realm, in which the definitions of what is right and what is wrong are not spelled out clearly. So, something that might be embarrassing to talk about in the real world is not so weird when being talked about in that ‘safe zone’.

3 The distorted portrayal of self:  The virtual world gives you anonymity and assisted tools to impress others. When people fail to do that of their own accord, they readily make use of them. It makes them feel good. It might not be a conscious decision to deceive others, and yet they end up doing son in real life.

4 The lack of physical consequences: The fact that one cannot see the effect of his/her action on the other person also allays the guilt factor. The internet provides a shield to the users, which protects them from physically encountering the consequences of their actions.

5Living out of fantasies: The Internet offers people a safe cocoon to live out their fantasies. And how other people feature in those fantasies never get out of the digital realm. Or, so they think.