Comments on: Intimacy vs Connection

By: TK

TK — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:35:48 +0000

I think it all depends on the people involved.

Go back and read some of the exchanges of handwritten letters between separated friends and lovers from the era when people used to actually write letters — say, the 18th, 19th, and first four-fifths of the 20th century. Astonishingly intimate. The famous Sullivan Ballou letter from the Civil War is a good example, but there are others. Letters between death row convicts and penpals on the outside, where the parties have never met? Astonishingly intimate all over again. Yes, these are extraordinary circumstances, but I’m not so sure that’s the independent variable here. I think it’s the people.

Cases in point from the modern world of Yahoo chat, Skype, Twitter, and Facebook: I know people who say they cry more in online text/video chat with friends, and feel deeper emotions that way, as opposed to face to face. I know that phone/Skype therapy works better at a statistically significant level for certain disorders like depression than does face-to-face. http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/10/06/phone-based-therapy-improves-depression-care/8784.html I know…

Oh, you get the idea! It’s not the tech. It’s the people.

By: Becky Knight

Becky Knight — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:47:36 +0000

Critical Masculinities – can you explain a little more about what you mean about a broader understanding of technology? If you think the internet doesn’t foster intimacy, how do you see technology in the broader sense, doing so?

I kind of use technology to encompass telephones, the internet, blogs, Facebook, texting, etc — everything that requires a gadget of some kind. Are there better terms to use or ways to differentiate?

By: Becky Knight

Becky Knight — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:43:19 +0000

Songbird – I think your post is a concise summary of exactly what I was trying to say. That “technology” can not replicate what you have when you’re face-to-face with someone, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be useful.

By: Songbird

Songbird — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:00:22 +0000

It can’t replicate it, but when it’s all you have, you’re grateful for it. My husband’s work keeps him away from home for half the year. We do our best to arrange in-person reunions, but they are supplemented by the sound of a familiar voice on the phone or sweet words typed in a little box. It’s our normal, and we make it work until we can have the face-to-face.

By: Critical Masculinities

Critical Masculinities — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:49:30 +0000

I agree with what you’re saying, but would make the (I think important) distinction between “the internet” and “technology” – I would agree with you that communication techs like the internet enable people to maintain and reinforce intimate relationships, but usually do not foster intimacy in and of themselves. Speaking more broadly about technology though, I think that has a great capacity, in numerous ways, to foster intimacy.

By: Becky Knight

Becky Knight — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:12:06 +0000

maymay – Wonderful insight, thanks for sharing it.

I agree with you and I realize that some people may get more from IMs, texts and emails than me. Maybe some people are better at communicating that way than I am. I feel like doing those things is somewhat of an obligation in this day and age and part of me resists it. I know it’s pointless, but sometimes all I can think is “but I want to have this conversation in person!” I find it much easier to emotionally bond with someone when I have shared a face-to-face conversation. Yet, I do enjoy being in contact with people through this blog, twitter, etc. But I am an introvert at heart, and I feel most like myself when I am alone or in an emotionally connected encounter with someone.

So I admit some of this frustration with “connection vs intimacy” is borne from my own limitations, but I still think that technology, while it can enable intimacy on some level, cannot replicate the intimacy of being together in person.

By: maymay

maymay — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:56:50 +0000

I don’t think the issue is best explored by pitting the question as a “versus” statement. Connection simply means a relationship, association, or “joining of two things (especially for communication)“, which I think we’ll all agree that telecommunications technologies help us do. But intimacy is about the quality of that connection. Not in terms of whether the connection is “good” or “better” than some other connection, but about the kind of emotional attachment one feels when one is connecting to another person. Intimacy implies familiarity and when people are involved, I imagine you would be among the first to champion greater and more involved communication.

I do believe there is a different quality of a connection when physical presence is part of communication, and that’s why I wholly agree with your final paragraph regarding the value in physical intimacy, but I don’t think that necessarily lessens the value in the very real intimacy we can experience from afar using the Internet.