I recently moved from home to my college campus, getting back to offline mode as the pandemic gives us a break. All the people I had been seeing for the past one year as Google icons, WhatsApp DPs, and Instagram friends came to reality like still pictures turning into motion.
We all were elated to come back to the normal world, meeting in person and chatting about things beyond our studies. However, to my surprise, I experienced that people are different in their online persona and in-person identity. I had heard about people being different on social media and in real life, but experienced it first hand on the campus after a year of knowing people just through online mode. Reality struck me even harder when this observation was shared by a classmate about me.
We were having a gala time in her room and she happily exclaimed that, “I never thought you would be so jovial from the little conversation we had on WhatsApp!” I was shocked to know about my “online rude” side.
I immediately checked the WhatsApp chats that we had exchanged and she was not wrong. I sounded too formal for a conversation between classmates. It was so straightforward that one could obviously take it as rude because he/she may be expecting a light conversation. This incident left me pondering how online mode can be so convenient, yet at the same time cause misunderstandings. We lose a personal touch.
This has also to do with the mindspace and surroundings we are in when studying or working from home. Amid the pandemic and not to forget the occasional family chaos (with all the family members together after a long time), a notification on WhatsApp is highly likely to be ignored or just be done away with a few words.
Taking my own example, I shifted from a corporate job to higher studies. My default mode to answer a message or mail from an unknown person remains formal (with all due respect) but in person, I can be very different: cracking jokes over coffee or discussing the new Netflix drama. This might not happen in online mode. Though I clicked with a few classmates of mine on such topics, those were rare occasions.
Similarly, throughout this pandemic and lockdown mode, I came across many people who appear to be outgoing and extroverts, given their highly active status on social media but back in college when I met them, they remained confined to their own space. Social media gives us great liberty to reach out to the whole world without leaving our own comfort zone and that creates all the difference. Going out and meeting people can be a different ball game altogether. The people I thought I would meet and connect immediately (from their online perception) didn’t work out as I thought it to be. And it is very much possible that others had the same feeling about me! I connected better with people I had never come across during my online mode.
At home, we are usually preoccupied with familiar people and their thoughts. Connecting with each other over campus walks, sports and discussions while we wait for the professors brings out a different side in each of us. A heated group discussion on chats gets resolved quickly over a meet-up at lunch or corridors. Online mode does not provide that space. The identity that appears on the online icons can be far from their real self. Emoticons cannot be a replacement of the body language and expressions on your face. Emoticons have straight one meaning while expressions vary. Though the pandemic has given us ample opportunities to connect with the world from the comfort of the four walls, going out and meeting people in person will always have its own advantage and charm.
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