Phatic Communication, or, Why not start the new year with a rant?

“Phatic communication, a term first coined by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, is the international linguistic phenomenon of “small talk;” that is, exchanges meant to provide a social connection rather than transmit information. Think about your last ride in an elevator: did everyone suffer silently, or did someone attempt a connection by offering some idle chatter about the weather? That man was engaging in a bit of phatic communication.
The need to connect phatically is almost, but not quite, universal. A recent study from the University of Kansas, for example, found that Germans don’t typically engage in phatic rituals.

But the researchers found that phatic gestures are commonplace in the United States, Japan, and even Iran. And our tendencies to exchange social niceties influence the sort of products we design and use.

Some of today’s most successful products have phatic properties that allow us to connect socially…”

“Phatic interactions abound in the wired community space as well. The advent of camera phones and sites like Flickr only reinforce the trend to moblog the world with mundane photographs. We are wired to connect socially with others, so of course sharing photos is addictive…”

“As phatic devices deluge our daily lives with cheery interpersonal messages, we will eventually develop an immunity to the power of the social network. Just like email, the more messages we receive, the shorter, more selective and delayed our responses will be. Even now, some people choose to hide behind their headphones, brandish their iPods like Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak…”

Quotes taken from here.

Though this excerpt comes from the context of an article about technologies, products, and design, the information it relays is quite illuminating. I was not aware of this term “Phatic Communication” until my friend Dwight pointed it out to me… what I was aware of, however, was my dislike for something which ended up being the very thing that is described here as phatic communication. I had vented my annoyances in a few online chats, and now I vent them here…

Here is what I perceive as the strengths of phatic communication: social interaction, encouraging introspection and reflection in the individual.
The flaws: superficiality, and at times, fostering unhealthy egoism and self-centeredness, and further fostering fragmented, overloaded lives (see my previous post on New Years ;)

I look around the web at this phenomenon of blogs. A phenomena that I am a part of, as I also have my own blog and participate in several group blogs. I also notice this outcropping of sites that are geared towards “user-generated content” and “social media” – consider sites like Blogger, Xanga, MySpace, Hi5, Orkut, 43things, Thefacebook, Friendster, LiveJournal, Geocities, Buzznet, Photobucket, and of course, Flickr. I have not even mentioned the other sites where you can host a blog, like Wordpress, Typepad, et al. I am sure this list could go on and on. As a member of at least half of these, I can attest that I – personally – find most of them pointless. Completely pointless.

Let me break this down a bit. The idea behind these sorts of things is one of two things, or both, namely, social interaction or personal web space. The former is self explanatory, the latter is geared for letting others, the world, your avid readers, know who you really are. I read an interesting history of weblogs as passed on to me by Karen, which you can read here
(Though written in 2000, I still find it accurate for the most part.)

So here is what I see as happening: you sign up for the latest site, create a user name and password (which I will inevitably forget), try to navigate through these sites that oftentimes are confusing and are a nightmarish sensory overload, in order to identify who you are, create a profile, and then eventually use this site to make contacts, meet people, exchange email messages, share photos, swap stories. You’re encouraged to do things like “rank” another person on a scale of how close in friendship you are to them, or to give a “testimonial” about this person. This accomplishes 2 things: 1, you are letting the other person know who you are and that this person means something to you, thereby hopefully increasing traffic to your own profile, and 2. bolstering their ego and perhaps yours as well. I, however, get no thrill from seeing someone label me as their friend who I already knew hours or years ago was my friend. However, do I get a thrill out of knowing that there is increased traffic to my profile, my space, where people are reading my thoughts? I think so… and why is this? Why do I enjoy finding I have an increased readership? Ahh, what a difficult question to answer. At the core though is the fulfillment of my longing – and I would argue, everyone’s longing – to belong and to be known.

Here’s the BIG problem I have: people will know me in disjointed pieces, by words alone, and often even this is at a superficial level. Now, I have seen online relationships flourish and grow. But inevitably, if they are to grow, there is going to be a transition to talking to someone on the phone, and from there, to meeting that person… because frankly, something is lost when you are distant from a person physically (at least I am convinced of it). Though I see that some of my friends have such flourishing friendships via online and blogging (I have to give them some credit here!), I find that this is rare, and usually the friendships remain superficial and the individuals misunderstood at best. But this even belies an even bigger beast of a problem: no one can really know us fully. That is, as I believe, no one except God.

I believe there is this incredible longing in everyone to be known, and that this longing is curbed at times by other people, friends, spouses, etc. However, this longing cannot be filled completely apart from God. I believe only God knows us fully as humans, and in His grace, He grants us the ability to know others and be known by others in other ways and in varying degrees. Of course, I would think that a marriage relationship would be the highest possible filling of this longing that exists on earth next to one being known by God. But there is something else beyond the individualism of being known… there is a corporate knowing that evolves as well. All of these sites that thrive on man’s desire for connection, knowability, interaction, conversation and other generic phatic communication, usually strive to also provide a community. There is a community of photographers to comment on your photos, there is a community of friends you gather around yourself, an entire network of contacts that you “know” only because they might be the best friend of the nephew of a teacher who swapped with a new acquaintance their timeshare homes one summer, whose neighbor has a friend in Australia that likes to skydive and who you met in a chat room a month ago. Ever heard of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon? Ladies and gentlemen, we now have the 6 degrees of separation between you and the rest of the world… and how well do you know these people? Hardly at all. And how well do they know you? Even less.

Maybe I’m the poison in this scenario; after all, most people love these sites and thrive on them and appear to derive some benefit from them, albeit a benefit I wish could be put into cogent terms that would carry with it some hefty significance. At the moment, I see no significance at all. What I do see is an abstraction from meaningful, intentional community and conversation, characterized by true vulnerability, accountability, and fellowship. I see people latching onto one thing they have in common as though that binds them as soul friends for eternity, which in reality is a farce. All this we do, we pursue, we spend hours online, hours blogging, writing, chatting… to belong and to be known. This drives me crazy because I know there is something more, and I personally want something more than this, and I am becoming increasingly dissatisfied with so many of these sites pitching their new scheme of how to find your next boyfriend or land a job by meeting the right people.

Sadly, yes, networking must still exist and still has utmost importance to some people, especially in the job market or the corporate world. (I can just add this as one more thing to the unwritten list in my head of Why I Hate Corporate America.) But I’m dubious that the sort of networking needed to land you a hot job happens via such a site.

Alright, perhaps you are saying after reading such a whining monstrosity that I should just shut my trap, you know, pull the plug on my blog and retreat into my internet-less, phatic-less land. Truly, I will say back to you, I have considered this very thing. There was a reason I was resistant to the digital camera world. I still have reservations even though I now own such a camera and try to maintain a little photostream at Flickr. However, I have found reasons to like digital photography. I also believe I have reasons to like blogging. Though I say, it has little to do with phatic communication and social interaction. It has more to do with staying in touch with those who I already have an established significant relationship with in the past, as well as creating a place for conversation. Yes, as the good Johnnie alum I am, I wish to resurrect conversation in the blogosphere. I am tired of me just typing away at my own little blog. I am much more in favor of a community blog, which I have seen work (also in varying degrees of profitability) at places like the BHT. (As a side note: while I am stuck in Corporate America, I am thankful for my fellow bloggers who do take the time to jot down their thoughts. I enjoy reading them when I have down time at work, and we all know how much down time I have…)

This is in no way meant to criticize bloggers or those who enjoy the sites. This is my plea to understand how these places are beneficial. I have reaped little, if any, and perhaps arguably, suffered negativity, as a result of our phatic-communication-obsessed culture. Thus, what I really must do is ask questions of myself: what do I want my blog to be? Do I aspire to practice journalism? Do I aspire for a healthy readership, to influence masses of people by my own simple reflections? Do I want commentary from others on my writing and poetry and photography? There are a lot of questions to ask, and a lot of elements to consider. However, I will maintain my blog, because I know others have expressed their pleasure in being able to hear about my life and what is going on in my head. All the same, I would – again, personally – like to do without those places where you will find phatic communication that is steeped in superficiality and only causes to stimulate headaches from forgotten passwords and heartaches from being fed the lie that you, as an individual, are the most important thing in this world, and there is nothing outside of you more important and deserving of your time and energy and true openness…

After all this, I’m thinking that maybe I need to be German.