parasociality

WhatsApp was so fast and anonymous that I was being honest, more quickly than I usually would with a new person. I felt that I was screaming everything I had ever wanted to say into outer space, into the unknown. But instead it was to David, to his shitty aviators and pencil-thin scarf. It didn’t matter. I knew that when I landed he’d be waiting fo... See more

The primary difficulty with the process of meeting online, according to some psychologists, is that there is little similarity between a disembodied e-mail consciousness and a real-life encounter. As a result, it is impossible to tell how two people, no matter how much they like each other in a computer context, will get along in the real world.

But... See more

Because texts generally occur between two parties and on private devices, they are intimate. Because they transmit instantly and in short utterances, texts resemble conversations. But texts are also depersonalized, carrying few traces of the physical person behind them—no face, no voice, no handwriting. You cannot be certain whether a recipient is ... See more

“one-night stand” is an anachronism. Even if you only have sex once, you will spend time with your hookup when he finds you on Facebook, appears in a mutual friend’s Instagram, or texts about a weird bump he found on his penis. Older generations didn’t have a word for this kind of thing—they couldn’t have. But these are, in fact, relationships. Eve... See more

Modern Love

Finally Stepping Out From Behind the Computer

Can it be emotional abuse when only one person is emotionally invested?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have an addiction to WhatsApp or rather an addiction to loving David through WhatsApp. It was a fantasy portal—a pipe-dream space that I could free fall into whenever it was convenient for me.

Social psychologists have already figured that out. ''What you lose with text is the dynamic of the behavior,'' said Dr. Jon E. Grahe of Monmouth College in Monmouth, Ill. Words are largely irrelevant in determining rapport, he said. Nonverbal communication is what counts. ''With nonverbals, there's motion and activity.''

Our digital devices are miniature vaults where we capture intel and experiences that were meant to be experienced on other platforms and fashion them into our own devotions to our neuroses. A screenshot text message exchange is saved by one party and forgotten by the other until it emerges as evidence in a quarrel. A photo meant to live on Instagra... See more