Birth of social lives disguised as death

Stop me if you've heard any of these before:

• "We're more connected now than we've ever been, and yet drifting ever further apart."
• "Nowadays kids just sit inside playing around on the computer instead of playing with their friends outside."
• "Today's children grow up without learning proper social communication due to spending less time with their peers face-to-face."
• "It's ironic that social networks make us less social"
• "Technology stops us from connecting with the world around us"

Now raise your hand if you've ever seen stock photos like this before, used in stories about any of the above topics:

It's most likely that most of us will either have said some of these things or heard it from their friends. Hell, it's likely that most of you will even agree that this sort of easily accessible technology has made our collective social lives stale, our attention spans shorter, and our lives just generally worse off for it, since we no longer connect with the outside world as we once did when we didn't have all sorts of gadgets to distract us.

I'd just like to give you a friendly neighbourhood reminder of what it's like on the other side of the fence.

I suffer from social anxiety. Although I've almost always had some trouble connecting to people especially my own age, the problem only became increasingly problematic when I moved from high school to university. I put it down to the very structured life kids generally lead, compared to the unstructured, build-your-own sort of life that university thrusts at you -- but that isn't really the point. The point is that at pretty much every given time in my life, I've felt somehow isolated. There are a million and one things that I've blamed for that feeling of isolation, not the least of them being myself, but they aren't important to this post.

The exception to this rule of isolation is the internet. As a preteen, I got fiercely into text-based roleplaying games, the types one sets up on a forum (offline) and in chat rooms (online). Alongside the in-game part, I also became strongly integrated in the off-game communities the most successful of these games nurtured. The funny thing is that though I was part of a competitive sports team for six or seven years of my life, these online communities were the ones I felt that I belonged most strongly in. I could talk to people who had the same love for creative writing and fantasy as I did, and who seemed to have shared in my experience of isolation.

See, I mentioned that I was in a sports team. Unlike the stereotype, I did actively try to engage in the social community around me. However, I didn't always feel like the community around me tried to engage with me. These people on the internet, they got me. I felt like I was in a place where I could truly be understood, where people were on the same wavelength as I was. And even when this was not the case, for there were of course people on the internet, too, who did not share the same experiences as I did, somehow it was simply easier to communicate via instant messaging or forum posts. Despite what a lot of people, especially adults, around me said, there are definite ways of expressing the nuances of tone and intent just by using writing, by the use of punctuation and emoticons and simply by careful word choices. Similarly, communication over the internet allowed a sort of grace period, a pause in conversation longer than that  in face-to-face communication, in which I could think about exactly the right thing to say.

The internet was an important communication tool for me even outside friends I knew only over the internet. When I moved into a new country and thus an entirely new social environment, for a long time I depended on the internet to share thoughts and feelings I didn't dare to share with new friends face-to-face. I have since learnt to be more brave and outright about expressing myself, but were it not for the internet, I may never have been able to show any desire in expressing myself in the first place. In fact, I could go so far as to say that in some ways, being able to communicate with people on the internet has been like training wheels for me in terms of communicating with people in person. I've had a safe environment in which to experiment in -- an environment where I could instantly back away if I felt uncomfortable. I will go so far as to say that I don't think I would be able to talk to people the way I do if it weren't for the internet, as well as some very patient people who would listen to what I had to say where I had the courage to say it.

So the next time someone tells you that advancements in technology are sure to kill our social lives, remember that all they mean is social lives as they know. Remember that there are flocks and flocks of people like me who, were it not for the ability to communicate over the internet, IM, twitter, facebook, e-mail, even text message, may have ended up very depressed and alone.

Perhaps the only thing that this scaremongering is all about is that increasingly, people are learning to communicate like us.

The story of how I fail a lot

Hark, listen! For I shall tell you a story of how I really suck at making decisions and how that lead me to a decision that I will not, fingers crossed, regret.

At my university, they should offer a course (or unit, as we say in Australia *aussiepride!*) about picking courses, and then make it compulsory for me to take it. I've been at my uni for a whole two semesters now, and one thing I've learnt is that I really, really suck at picking units.

You see, at the end of last year, when I finished high school, I discovered that I had done very, very well on my exams and my grades were very, very good. I also knew that the course I had planned to apply for didn't actually require grades quite that magnificent. So, in a fit of pride, I decided that I should put those grades to good use and apply for a double degree instead. The specific double degree I finally decided on was a science/biomedical sciences degree. The smartest of you will probably notice how "biomedical sciences" has the phrase "bio" in it, which is, in all likelihood, referring to biology. Even though I had it on paper that I am really smart (or just a massive nerd), this fact somehow failed to register with me. See, I knew that I hated biology. I knew this from the get-go. And still, I thought it was a good idea to devote half of my degree to it.

Extremely surprisingly, I hated both (one semester consists of four units at my university) of my biomed units, and at the end of semester one, I proceeded to transfer to the science degree that I wanted to apply for in the first place.

Then it came time to pick units for semester 2. I was extremely excited, because since I was now doing a single degree, I had room for electives -- I wouldn't only have to confine myself to core units as double degree students are forced to, but I could actually do something fun as well! Further, I could do a unit outside my own faculty; I could pick some really interesting arts unit to balance with my three science units! I perused the multitude of units they offered in the arts faculty, and finally settled on a philosophy unit.

Considering the tone of this post, can you guess what the problem was here? Yep, I actually really hate philosophy. Why? Because I don't usually even think in a coherent manner -- I'm much more a touchy-feely type person than an evaluative, rational person in my life philosophies. As with biology, I knew this beforehand; for some reason, the unit description just got to me and I thought that I would somehow magically begin liking it.

For next year, then, I've finally given up the notion that I'm any good at picking units. Instead of failing at picking electives, I'm going to focus all my energy and attention on something I know I love: I've decided that I'm going to do a double major (72 points instead of 48 points; each unit is 6 points, don't even know why) in chemistry. I know that it's going to kill me a little, but if last year (i.e. my last year at high school) is any indication of anything, it's indication of the fact that I'm not afraid of doing work.

That, and I'm a huge nerd, and I take pride in doing lots of nerdy things.

Wish me luck!


EDIT 23/10 18:45: Yeah, I only now realised how badly I had screwed that title up. I guess you could've interpreted that as some sort of a pun as to how badly I fail? Alas, no, it was an actual (to borrow Neil Gaiman's wonderful expression) #silbenawebfail. Derp.

The woes of nerdhood

In my honest opinion, one of the most difficult things about being a nerd is that one time in a hundred  -- assuming, of course,  that you're either brilliant or know your stuff well enough to keep your mouth shut when you know you don't know your stuff -- when you're actually wrong.

To be honest, I'm possibly not the best person to be talking about this, because I am a horrible perfectionist with a bit of an obsession for being organised -- and with that, comes the need to forever be prepared. I'm always careful not to stick my nose into an argument I don't feel sure about. You hardly ever see me discussing things that I don't feel I'm "entitled' to discuss, because I don't feel like I've got enough knowledge about a certain subject.

Still, I firmly believe that no-one likes being wrong. It's like the jarring note when someone scrapes their nails on a blackboard, or a fork against a plate. For some people, it might be weaker and they might be able to shrug it off, but for most nerds, for whom knowing things would (I imagine) be a matter of pride, I'd think that the jar would be stronger than that. Sure, maybe there are some who delight on being corrected because they can now use the situation as a learning opportunity, but I'm relatively certain that anyone who has ever been relatively certain of themselves will display at least a measure of dismay when contradicted and/or corrected on their subject of surety.

That, and those who bother to look into things and are knowledgeable enough to know what they are not knowledgeable in will probably not be wrong on a regular basis, and will be even further dismayed by the unfamiliarity of the feeling. Thus, the nerdfolk would be far more susceptible to the plague of discomfort and metaphorical bristling at the thought (and experience) of being wrong.

Or perhaps I'm trying to soothe the sting of my own pettiness by drawing sweeping conclusions. I wouldn't hold that against me: we're just human beans here, after all.

And I really hate being wrong, you know.