They aren't real. Everyone who responds to you - including me - is indeed just a bot: we're nothing more than a bunch of electrons whizzing around silicon somewhere in Moscow, Shanghai, or Seattle.
More seriously, the feeling you describe is common, and the result of us interacting in a way that's completely novel. Humans are social animals, and much of the communication between people when we're face-to-face is non-verbal. In the early years of our lives, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to read other people, and communicate non-verbally.
Face-to-face communication often fails for a whole range of reasons. Communication limited to verbal conversation is even more prone to misunderstandings. Restricting conversation to text on a screen with the number of words pared to the minimum means it all becomes even more abstract and detached. If the person you're communicating with is just one of many tens or even hundreds of people you're intermittently in contact with, then it's very easy to no longer see them as human beings.
I suspect this is a defense mechanism. Psychologists have suggested that the human brain is only capable of maintaining a personal relationship with a maximum of around 150 people. If we never actually get to know online "friends" as individuals to begin with, then it's natural to avoid investing much energy in seeing them as real people with their own needs and feelings.
IIN to feel that people I text aren’t real?
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They aren't real. Everyone who responds to you - including me - is indeed just a bot: we're nothing more than a bunch of electrons whizzing around silicon somewhere in Moscow, Shanghai, or Seattle.
More seriously, the feeling you describe is common, and the result of us interacting in a way that's completely novel. Humans are social animals, and much of the communication between people when we're face-to-face is non-verbal. In the early years of our lives, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to read other people, and communicate non-verbally.
Face-to-face communication often fails for a whole range of reasons. Communication limited to verbal conversation is even more prone to misunderstandings. Restricting conversation to text on a screen with the number of words pared to the minimum means it all becomes even more abstract and detached. If the person you're communicating with is just one of many tens or even hundreds of people you're intermittently in contact with, then it's very easy to no longer see them as human beings.
I suspect this is a defense mechanism. Psychologists have suggested that the human brain is only capable of maintaining a personal relationship with a maximum of around 150 people. If we never actually get to know online "friends" as individuals to begin with, then it's natural to avoid investing much energy in seeing them as real people with their own needs and feelings.
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Anonymous Post Author
5 years ago
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Too long didn’t read.