The lights dimmed as the audience waited in anticipation.
Aziz appeared, dressed in his iconic black and white tuxedo, a wide-eyed, goofy smile gracing his features. It was the start of his Netflix special, Live at Madison Square Garden. He proceeds to charm the audience with his well-practiced comedic techniques. Through carefully timed pauses and borderline offensive jokes, Aziz subtly expresses his different views on controversial topics, one of which describes how social media affected modern human interaction. Working with sociologist Eric Klinenberg, Aziz would later publish a book on the same topic.
It took Ansari’s parents less than thirty minutes to decide their marriage. Fast forward thirty years and it is taking Ansari more than that amount of time to figure out a place to eat dinner. Like many others in our generation, Ansari is overwhelmed by choices, or mostly the abundance of them. “This kind of rigor goes into a lot of my decision making. Whether it’s where I’m eating, where I’m traveling or, God forbid, something I’m buying…” exclaims Ansari in his Time magazine article discussing his book. We have the option to potentially make an experience better. Like no other generation, the information we need is right at our fingertips. However, an overabundance of choices also leads to stress, and in the worse case scenario, not getting anything done, as evidence of Ansari getting a peanut butter and banana sandwich when he ran out of time trying to decide. Ansari’s parents were still happily married after thirty years.
In 2014 the average American stares at a digital screen for around 7.5 hours per day. The figures are lower in European countries, where people generally spend 5 to 7 hours per day, while countries like China, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines spend around 9 hours per day in front of their laptops, texting on their phone, or swiping on a tablet. The addiction to technology isn’t limited to America; it’s an international issue.
I myself can tell from experience that compared to America, a country filled with extroverts, a typical Asian “fun” day is staying in with your friends and playing video games. We seldom lift ourselves up from the couch to go to a party. Since the increase in screen time, the importance and prominence of online communication have increased also. Instead of being married to the neighbor next door or taking time to develop a relationship with a high school sweetheart, we hesitate and continuously doubt our relationships, thinking that we can find a better option simply by swiping the screen. We hone our online communication techniques and develop tinder profiles not necessarily honest, but would get us more dates. As Ansari states in his book Modern Romance, “today we want a bunch of doors as options and we are very cautious about which door to open…the emerging adulthood phase of life is basically a pass society gives you to hang out in the hallway and figure out what door is really right for you”.
“Okay… If you’re in that situation, do me a favor right now. Pull out your phone and scroll to the very, very first message that you have with this person. And when you get to the very, very, very first message, come on to the front stage over here through this aisle here.” Ansari prompts after surveying the audience for their preferences in relationships. He asks if anyone in the audience is in a developing relationship, and asks for anyone in the audience to reveal their text history with the said person.
People hustled to bring out their phone. A lucky brunette hurried up the stage and handed him her phone, without hesitation. As Ansari scrolled through her messages and read them aloud in front of thousands of audiences, she made no move to stop him from plowing through her budding relationship. She merely laughed. Privacy has devolved to the point where people would allow their private romantic texts to be read onstage and recorded forever on the internet. Because relationships are so easily built through text, they are no longer held as valuable. Ansari used this borderline inappropriate, privacy invading episode in his show in order to further prove his point: social media has really changed how we treat relationships, and not always for better.
Ansari also explored human interaction in not necessarily romantic situations. “We’re all really shitty people. Whenever we’re dealing with others, we’re like, ‘I’m gonna pretend to be busy. I don’t wanna say anything.’” Ansari exuberantly motions with his hands, his voice rising to a sarcastic pitch. “When other people are dealing with us, we’re like, ‘Why must we all play these games? Can’t we all just be honest with one another?’” Ansari performs his line. The audience laughs carefreely, as expected of Ansari. When he performs the line, he aims to create a comedic atmosphere, using a silly tone of voice and hysterical facial features.
However, when one looks at the transcript alone, the topic is dead serious. Ansari is voicing his concern on a social problem that everyone can relate to, yet no one wants to admit. Because it separates us physically from the person, “texting facilliates flakiness and rudeness and many other personality traits that would not be expressed through a phone call or an in-person interaction.”(Ansari 44) Deep down, we know that we aren’t as nice as we appear to be on the outside. We avoid people deliberately, using tactics that would not hurt our reputation and cause the least conflict. We become hesitant to discuss once important manners such as romantic interest directly, choosing instead to utilize the many techniques of online communication to subtly express interest or dislike.
Although digital communication often happens on a one-on-one basis or in small chat rooms, everyone seems to instinctively understand the social norms of text messaging developed over the short years we’ve spent spending each other emojis. The timing and the structure of a text message also constitutes the impression one gives off in the few simple sentences that make up a conversation.
Some basic rules:
- Don’t text back right away. You come off as a loser who has nothing going on.
- If you write to someone, don’t text them again until you hear from them.
- The amount of text you write should be of a similar length to what the other person has written to you.
This is especially important when attempting to start a relationship. One of the women in Ansari’s focus groups displays a classic and humorous example : her name for a potential suitor who she had just exchanged numbers with is “ GREG DON’T TXT TIL THURSDAY”. Although she is clearly interested in him, she has to suppress the urge to talk to him and feign disinterest in order to increase her desirability. Texting is less about conversation quality then about endless mind games. One must follow the rules in order to not be put on “read” forever by the other party participating in this tug-of-war.
When we are first introduced to emails and text messages, things were simple: I text you a message, and you reply when you are ready. However, technology became more intricate. In the texting system nowadays, a hoard of information is thrown at us through the seemingly simple design of the messaging apps. By one glance at a Facebook status, you can tell how long it has been since the person was last active and even get notified when a person is active. One of the most useful(and dreaded) feature of the common text messaging app is the “read” function. A clear signal that a person is disinterested in you is when they leave you on read and don’t text back. However, there are other reasons for not texting back immediately that can be misinterpreted, such as not having the time, or simply needing time to construct an answer. This fear of miscommunication may cause some to struggle with opening messages in general, which can mean another thing to the opposing party. Because of options to express different intentions, any text sent is seen as complex, with hidden layers of meaning factoring in various aspects of the text. A simple “heyyy” can be easily misunderstood.
Ansari is a comedian. He makes us laugh, joking about the seemingly insignificant topic onstage. Off stage, particularly in his book, we see a more serious tone voicing the concerns of modern society on social media and human relationships. Texting can be great when used in moderation, but overuse can cause a simple tool to become full of hidden rules and insincerity. The next time you invest into a relationship via text, remember to be genuine, not just because they chose you to text out of so many choices, but also because they risked being the one that is put on “read”.
Ansari, Aziz, and Eric Klinenberg. Modern Romance. New York: Penguin Press, 2015.
