Social Society

We live in an increasingly social society, even as there are those who defame the internet as decreasing social behavior amongst human beings. The truth is though that we are discovering new ways to be social. In American Society, introversion is treated as if it were some kind of disease, some kind of failing that needs to be stamped out. Introverts now have a method of being social that does not involve physical contact or presence, and the internet is simply how they express that. The internet does not discourage social behavior, it simply gives new options for such behavior for those who prefer different methods of social interaction, ones that are less draining for their personality type.

Internet chat rooms, e-mail, and forums are just one method of this. New games, such as The Way, and Journey, as well as games such as Dark Souls have interesting ways of communicating, often by the complete LACK of normal communication methods. In none of the above games can a person voice chat, or use text to speak with other players directly. In The Way and Journey, both are completely lacking, with only a limited selection of in game gestures and emoticons permitted for the use of the player to communicate. In doing so, we have an entirely new way of socilizing, one that I feel, goes deeper than the normal spoken and written communications. When playing The Way, for example, I was surprised and frustrated by how quickly or slowly different players picked up on my gestures to guide them along invisible obstacle courses that I could see, but they were unable to. We communicated without using words, without using symbols, only gestures our characters could make. "Happy" "Angry" "Confused" pointing in various directions, both arms up, or both arms crossed, with this limited set of communications, we could engage in a meaningful dialogue.

This, to me, goes far beyond "Social Games" like Facebook's Farmville. In those games, you use an existing network of friends, rarely ever communicating with them through the game at -all- you use facebook to communicate, and they occasionally pop into your game to assist with various chores and such. It is beyond comprehension to me that these be called social games because they have no social interaction in any meaningful sense. There is NETWORKING, there is COOPERATION, in a limited sense, but nothing SOCIAL about them really. No, these games are networking games, not social games. Dark Souls has more meaningful social interaction, with the Casandraic warnings left etched into the walls by other players in their own games, and the ghosts of other players invading and helping you in your own world when you call upon them.