Greeting Strangers

The other day I had a sudden urge to violate yet another social norm. To read about my first one click here. Now as some people put it, our society is prone to indifference to people they do not know. I decided to ignore this foolishness. I waved at a group of girls from a distance and when I got close enough I wished them a good day. They murmured their replies in such a way, as if they thought I was mistaking them for someone else.
"Uh, hi."
The word "Uh." A word of uncertainty. A word that screams, WHAT IS SHE DOING? and IS SHE OUT OF HER MIND? and my favorite, WHAT, WHO IS SHE, WHAT IS HAPPENING. ACT COOL. BUT WHAT DO I SAY?
"Uh, hi."
I gave them a final nod as I walked away, their suspicious eyes followed me until I opened the door to the café where I went to meet my friends.

I want to know why we are surprised when random strangers wish us a good day, or when a random person smiles at another. We have become distrustful of one another and wary of strangers. Of course we shouldn't be naïve and go around a city with a high crime rate at night to just walk around saying nice things to strangers. They might eat you up alive. All I'm saying is maybe we should take up kindness when we see it. If someone greets you, don't automatically assume they have an ulterior motive to mug you.

We are Anti-Social Agoraphobes

So I was thinking a few weeks ago how agoraphobic we are becoming in society today because we're not very keen to have face-to-face communications with anyone because of the chance that it might become awkward or you may embarrass yourself. Well, technology is making it very easy to pick up this phobia. Look at yourself right now, what are you doing? You're reading this blog post by a person who owns a domain on a website accessible from anywhere around the world. I am talking to you right now without actually talking to you. I am talking to the hundreds of my viewers from all across the globe through the internet. Something that did not exist twenty or thirty years ago...

How about something else...talking to people. Before the telephone, the only way you could talk to someone was to go to their house and talk to them. Or run into them at the market. The alternative was a telegraph, or maybe a letter which sometimes got lost. Then with the telephone, things got pretty easy. You could call someone and say what you need to without actually meeting them. You can laugh, you can argue, you can make each other cry. You weren't even face to face! Just hearing their tone of voice and listening to how they stressed the words was enough. Granted, it wasn't as amazing as meeting with someone face to face, but it was very convenient.

With the internet came email and instant messaging, which was great. Now with email you can talk to someone or send someone something without them having to be on the line with you. It's very easy and creative, you can make appointments and send birthday cards that are colorful and cheesy, you can even email multiple people at once. It was a fast way to get a message across. Instant messaging was nice too, now someone can be chatting with someone else and also be working on homework, eating, or just browsing the web, or talking to someone when you need to be in silence. It frees up space in the brain so now you can talk to that person and work on other things as well. Thing is, these easy widgets lead to a problem. The factor of hearing that person's voice, and getting at whether they are angry, sarcastic, dry, sad, or genuinely happy (yes you can hear if someone is happy or not) is gone. Replaced by emoticons like :) and :P and :o and ;) and so on. Then came the more creative ones like ^_^ and -_- and T_T and O_O and ._. and so on. There are also options for even more smileys on smartphones like Apple and Android, but I'll get to that later. My point is, with the internet, people started to substitute phone calls and face-to-face meetings with instant messaging and email. Well at least that's a good thing we need to be near an internet source then right? Once we're away from home we have to use other forms of communication like our cool cell phones!

When cell phones were invented in in 1970's, they did not at first come with SMS (Short Messaging Service), what we know as texting. It wasn't until the late 1990's to early 2000's that it became available and a few years after that before it became popular. Once it did reach a high level of popularity, things started to get weird. People began to send more messages than they placed calls. More and more conversations happened via text than through phone call. It hit a point after that where people would feel nervous to call the person on the phone, preferring to text instead. Soon, to a lot of people, using the phone became awkward. Phones became smartphones and were much more advanced. They did not center around using the cellphone as a means to call, but instead was a device that can have tons of Apps you can download. From tools, to games, books, social networks, and millions more. There were even add-ons like emoticon keyboards that look like the one on the right. Most people don't call on these phones though. They text and tweet and update their Facebook. It didn't matter though, we were still talking to people...sort of.

Then came my favorite...social networks. Starting with Myspace then going to Facebook and Twitter was an interesting move on our social lives. What used to be the private happenings of our lives now became our status updates. Are you seeing someone? If you are why have you not updated your status yet? Have something to say? Talk about it! At first, it was okay not to post pictures of events or talk about what you are doing, but at this point, it became an integrated part of our social life. If you are not communicating using Facebook, you miss out on event invitations and people's most recent news. People expect you to know what they are up to if they put it up on Facebook. Twitter is all about what you are thinking, how you are feeling, and sometimes even what is happening at the moment, and to relay it in 140 characters. These social networks were an amazing catalyst for the Arab Spring in the Middle East. It was a way to relay information quickly and efficiently to the masses. Now you may think, "Okay, social networks are an amazing thing! We are being social!" Well that is true, but think about the amount of people who are very comfortable in front of their computer screens, teasing people and cyber bullying others when in reality, they cannot say the same things to that person's face. Furthermore, with this form of communication, you have no voice or visual about how the person reacted to a situation. What you read as someone's response to a certain post is not a true representation of how they actually reacted. How is "LOL!" and "HAHAHAHA OMG" as equivalent as watching someone laugh so hard it brought tears to their eyes? And how do you know that person is actually laughing? I've seen people type stuff even more expressive than the things above, all while keeping a straight face. Is that even normal? Then there is the case of people using social networks and texting all of those things more than face-to-face contact. Since they don't have practice with conversation starters and transitioning conversations, we are getting a lot more "awkward moments" than the generations before us. People just don't know how to react anymore. Still confused? Think about this:

Leaving campus, Sarah and Megan join in a conversation with John and Rachel. Rachel talks about something and finishes what she said and it just becomes quiet. No one has anything to say that pertains to what Rachel said, so no one is talking. This silence becomes uncomfortable so Sarah mumbles, "Well this is awkward." They laugh and change the topic. 

Funny thing is this is not a made-up situation. I've seen this conversation happen firsthand. People are forgetting how to respond to someone right away. With social networks and email and texting, people have time to write exactly how they want something put in a sentence, and when you write something you probably edit it before you send it. With talking, the minute you say it, it is out there and there is no backspace button. Also, if someone says something, you need to reply right away. You don't have time to think up a response. And if something insulting fazed you, there is no hiding it like so many people do on Facebook.  People pick up on your visual cues faster than you can compose yourself. So as you can imagine, some people think of how it is so hard to talk to someone face-to-face, so a lot of people try to avoid people to avoid awkward situations. Thus making them antisocial.

Finally, people are becoming agoraphobic too. Agoraphobia is the fear of places that are associated with a feeling of anxiety. Why are we all developing this? Think of how much you can get done without ever having to leave your house. You can order your pizza online, complete with your topping orders and everything. You may now do your banking online and never deal with a person at the bank. Oh and who needs department stores or going to the mall? You can order things from online stores too, and have things custom-made if you really want to. Who needs book stores and toy stores and everything in between when you have websites like amazon.com and a hundred other places to order from. Have a lot of garage-worthy junk at home? Why only sell to your neighbors? Put it up on Ebay and sell it to the world.

Our world has changed so drastically in the last twenty years it's crazy to think what would happen twenty years from now. I just keep thinking of Wall-E's world and what happened to the people in their high-tech bubbles. I guess all I'm saying is be careful not to completely lose touch of communicating with others face-to-face, and sometimes you should actually go out and buy something rather than just conveniently getting it online. Actually hearing and seeing people and interacting with them is far more rewarding and comforting than through text messages and social networks. I'm not saying you should stop using them because that would be ridiculous. All I'm saying is be aware that you may be losing touch of your face-to-face social skills. If you start feeling a nudge in you to avoid a situation with someone because it may be awkward, force yourself to go for it instead and get over your fear. Do not succumb to the comfort of your computer.

A Restless Mind, A Cathartic Solution

Today I had a lot on my mind. Nothing in particular and nothing that would interest you, but it was simply an abundant overflow of thoughts that flitted around in there. I couldn't handle it. I thought about how messed up the world is and how we're all going to die and all those wonderful positive thoughts of death and short life bubbled up. (Attention to sarcasm. I am well aware that they are not positive.) Then there was guilt and regret that slipped into the mix, which brought back dreaded memories. Overall it wrecked me. It wrecked me to the point where I just didn't care anymore. I mean, how do you free yourself from yourself?

So I opened up Microsoft Word and started typing. I typed for maybe half an hour straight. Whatever came to my demented state of mind was recorded. Unfinished sentences, horrible grammar, regrets, feelings, emotions, lies, truths, wishes, and so forth. After maybe about a single-spaced page and a half my mind grew quiet with the occasional thought lazily floating by about the weather or the need of a bodily function. I sighed out of relief and closed my eyes. The peace that followed was meditating.

I was at ease, totally content.

This is known as free association. In this case, it's a psychological technique that writers use to clear up the mind. No censorship. No grammar or spelling. No coherence necessary. Now some people like to reread what they write, others simply write it to unclutter their minds to clear up room for more focused writing. It's your decision whether you want to see the incoherence that flooded up your mind. For me personally, I wanted to unclutter to free up room for some hardcore novel writing. Rereading all of that will just drown me in those thoughts again. I saved the file though so I could read it some other day.

Another brilliant idea for using this technique is to let your imagination run wild. Give yourself a topic to write about and just write anything that comes to your mind. If it sounds creative and constructed, that's definitely a bonus, it doesn't have to be though. Once you feel like you've done what you can, give yourself a moment before rereading it. I've done this a couple times and found that in this reverie of writing, I find some sentences that are pretty worthy of note, unique, with interesting words and metaphors to complement them. It's like a morsel of gold in a jumble of muck and grime. You should try it sometime.

If you do end up trying this technique, maybe leave me a comment below on whether it worked or not? That would be fantabulous.

Violating Social Norms

Confession: I am a people watcher. Not only do I like to watch what people do, I like to do little tests to see how people react in certain situations. First though, before I tell you of my scheming ways, I need to give you a bit of background information on social norms.




Social norms are unwritten "rules" that people tend to do without really knowing that they're doing them. Let me give you an example, I'm pretty sure you've all been in an elevator before (if not, you're missing out). Now, ever notice that when people get into an elevator they turn around to face the door? I guess the only time someone wouldn't face the door would be if there was a mirror on the back wall or another door, but that's a different story.

Anyway, for the most part, people turn around, and it would feel weird not to. I dare you to try it. Walk into an elevator and just stay with your back to the door. You'll probably feel uncomfortable and people might look at you as if you just took off your pants. No joke. There is one exception though, and that would be the Elevator Psychology Experiment which deals with conformity. Highly entertaining and quite funny, I recommend you watch it. If you want to read more about elevator behavior, click here, and if that doesn't satiate your quench for more, there are plenty of other experiments and things, but sadly I can't link them all here ...but maybe I'll put another one here just for fun and another that relates to that one if you're really interested.

Another common one is the "buffer chair". Ever notice that when you're sitting in a theater, there's always that seat that separates the different parties from each other? I mean if the movie is sold out, then of course it's not weird, but if it wasn't, could you imagine sitting right next to someone in a relatively empty theater? They would be deathly afraid then, and you will feel out of place.

So now that you get the general gist of what I'm saying, here it goes...
Similar to the whole "buffer" idea, I decided to violate a social norm by sitting next to someone in the library. Allow me to explain. The campus library is lined with study desks. Though the desks are all connected, they are separated by wooden dividers and the desk itself is about 3 feet wide so every student gets ample space to work in. Thing is, people do the whole "buffer chair" norm and there is at least one desk in between each person. The chairs are fairly far apart so it's not like you would be sitting right next to the person like in a theater! So I decided to try it for myself to see what would happen if I sat in the desk next to someone and act like it's totally normal.

It was hilarious.

The minute I set my stuff down on the table, he looked up at me and I just smiled wanly and went back to unpacking my study materials. I rummaged around my bag, getting out my laptop and my books before taking a seat. He was still staring at me a bit, but when I turned around to face him he looked away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him look over a few times, probably making sure I wasn't going to kill him or anything. I was biting my lip to keep myself from laughing, but I busied my time on the computer, just to see how long he would sit there. I gave him about ten minutes and sure enough, he packed up and left, the tension leaving with his receding footsteps.

Isn't it strange how people do that though? Why is it such a big deal to sit next to someone, even though they're four feet away from each other? I know for a fact that I would be weirded out too, but why are we humans like that?