Do You Know How To Read Online Social Cues? I Certainly Don't
thought digest, 11.04.2024
EDIT: OMG, that POLL. I fixed it.
The election is nigh, Deeists…
Personally, I think it’s going to be a boon for alt-media, either way. I say that with both hopefulness and affection, as someone who aspires to be a name in alt-media. Please do candle magic for me, readers.
When are we going to figure out how to respond to EDs online? We keep having the same conversation about eating disorders online, platform after platform, and nothing ever changes. Arguably, it gets worse!
As Dazed recently highlighted, X is just the latest battlefield in a long war against the Eating Disordered Internet, with its algorithm aggressively pushing #edtwt content into people’s feeds. It’s a conversation we’ve been having for decades, at this point. Literally, decades. And every time we think we’ve solved it, it rears its ugly head again.
ED content always finds a way to break containment: on Tumblr, then Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, now X. (LiveJournal had these issues too, but the structure of the site made it much easier to keep gated.) And this is to say nothing of what happened in 2001, when Oprah taught the entire country about “pro-ana” websites in a special titled Girls Who Don’t Eat. From there, old-guard sites like Ana’s Grotto were only a Yahoo! search away.
What do we do? These spaces aren’t going away, and they shouldn’t have to. I don’t think they should be censored out of existence. Then, on the other hand, I agree, it is dangerous to have an algorithm pushing it. Not even because the more we see it, the more it gets absorbed into other internet-native aesthetics or subcultures, which it has, or because it’s “triggering,” which it obviously is.
But because the half-naked bodies of adolescent girls struggling with eating disorders shouldn’t be delivered to the many male-dominated subcultures of, to give just one example, X.
Us oldheads have seen that play out before, too, and it wasn’t pretty.
Do you know how to read digital social cues? Over the weekend, I read and was deeply moved by a manga called An Older Guy's First VR Love. (And if you've read it, I'm curious about your interpretation of those final pages – my strong endorsement might hinge on what exactly they were trying to convey.)
What struck me most was how it captured something I’ve never seen addressed in fiction before: the way social isolation can persist and even intensify in online spaces, despite their promise of frictionless connection. This is distinct from how you can feel lonely even in a hyperconnected world. Rather, it’s the experience of not knowing what to say or how to act even in digital spaces.
For many people, our social awkwardness doesn’t disappear online, it just transforms. I’ve called it “digital autism” on this blog before, though that feels imprecise, somehow. It’s not really autism and I shouldn’t contribute to the abuse of that word. It’s not quite social anxiety either, though. It is a persistent difficulty in reading and responding to social cues, even when they're mediated through screens.
It makes sense when you think about it though, right?
Why would they vanish online? You’re not suddenly perfect in cyberspace; you’re different. You’re disembodied. The way I end conversations IRL because of some awkward out of place comment happens in DM groups too. The social rules are different online than they are in the physical world, but they're still rules, and they can feel just as opaque here as they do there.
The other kind of “virtual” or “digital autism.” On parenting forums and in mental health spots in local news, I’ve noticed something called “virtual autism” begin to pop up.
The virtual autism theory suggests that early and intense screen exposure might create behavioral patterns that mirror certain aspects of autism. That is, kids aren’t learning to read micro-expressions or the subtleties of body language because they’re too busy looking at their iPads. The resulting behavioral patterns that kids learn can look remarkably similar to certain autistic traits: difficulty with eye contact, preference for predictability, challenges with reading social cues, intense focus on specific interests, hyper-sensitivity to loud sounds or unexpected textures.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I have whatever this phenomenon is. I’ve been in front of a screen since I was very young and I know that I missed critical socialization periods. But, like I said above, being uncomfortable in the physical world because of cyberspace doesn’t imbue with some special powers online. I still feel “socially awkward” in the digital world.
So, I wonder what will happen to the kids whose parents suspect they have “virtual autism.” Will they also feel like they don’t fit in anywhere?
Has Right-wing Twitter become Tumblr? However many Thursdays ago, friend-of-the-stack and fellow McLuhan enthusiast Mr. Prudentialist tweeted that Right-wing Twitter has become Tumblr.