July 16, 1999
Who needs Cupid's arrows when you've got electrons?
The idea that e-mail lets people bypass public posturing and discover each other's sweet center is pretty optimistic, says Nancy Baym. Nonetheless, Baym, the author of a forthcoming book titled "Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom and Online Community," defends electronic contact against those who think it spells the Death of Western Civilization.
One such is Sven Birkerts, author of "The Gutenberg Elegies." A while back, he said, "I am suggesting that communication mainly happens between breathing individuals and ought to be as close to face-to-face as we can make it."
Baym, a new assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, will tell you that that's wishful thinking. She quotes a Pew Research Center report issued last year that says about 35 percent of Americans now use e-mail.
Besides, she says, "The Internet is not that different from other kinds of communications. Yes, there is a real phenomenon of excessive personal disclosure, but it's not the norm."
Neither is it the norm to create a fake online self, another possibility that worries some critics. Of course masquerading does go on. One research study found that teen-age girls were more aggressive on-line than in person -- and given to being fairly generous in describing their looks to males.
Another gripe about electronic communication is that it's a crutch for the socially impaired. Baym doubts it. Research shows that online friendships frequently lead to face-to-face meetings and that there's a moderate level of commitment to these friendships.
Baym says that e-mail has tremendous range. It can be as spontaneous as the notes that girls pass in junior high or quite studied.
In that regard, e-mail isn't much different from the good old-fashioned letter, a communication vehicle that's also highly flexible. A friend of mine named Brian Doyle put it well when he wrote, "Letters, as tiny cries from the heart, are small cars in which both clowns and kings fit."
My personal hope about e-mail is that it can be a foundation for the deepening of settled relationships. What would Elizabeth and Robert Browning's love have been without the three to four letters a day they exchanged?
My older brother and I, long lost from each other's lives, have recently come again into contact. After passing an afternoon together, he e-mailed me this: "I never knew a lot about you since we didn't converse or see each other over the years, and it seems like I'm meeting a different person."
It boggles me that my brother wrote this. The words seem exotically intimate. It's as if I, too, am meeting a different person -- and e-mail is helping to make it possible.
Column by Roger Martin