Monday Snow Day: Compliments and Compliment Reciprocation

I was thinking about the response I had to the second question in the third part of the handout. The question was: How does this text speak to Cushing’s “Technology Doesn’t Make Us Less Social; It Just Changes the Way We Socialize”? Eventually I came up with this response: “This podcast shows the way in which we socialize now, versus maybe ten or twenty years ago. According to the podcast, in order to start a friendship, when you comment on a post from someone you don’t know, that person is automatically required to reciprocate and comment on yours. Not unlike a few years ago when one girl would say to another that her hair was pretty, and then the second girl was obligated to say the same thing back to the first. Even though the mode in which we communicate has changed, they nuances are the same.”

I realized that this need to comment and have comments directed back to us, it isn’t some newly founded insecurity developed in the rise of modern technology. Humans have always had a need to feel accepted and our response to this acceptance is to reciprocate it. Looking back on my everyday life, I’ve noticed the way that I start talking to a stranger or the way a stranger begins talking to me; which is that we complement each other. (Girls especially do this with other girls.) For example, the other night I was doing laundry in the dorms wearing a raggedy old pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and R2-D2 slippers because, as I was doing laundry, I had nothing else to wear. Well a girl walked in, getting out her load from the dryer, and I was waiting, because I needed to put mine in the space she was creating. We were the only two people in the room and it was severely award, so I stood there in silence. I had no idea what I should say. But then this girl looks over at me, smiles, and says “I like your slippers.” In an instant I look at her and say “Oh thanks! I like your hoodie!” Suddenly we were both more comfortable and began chatting as she unloaded the next dryer and I filled the spot she’d vacated.

This interaction with this girl showed me that, even though it seems ridiculous to feel obligated to respond to a comment from someone we don’t know on social media, it isn’t, because we do it in everyday life too, it’s just not as noticeable. I’ve noticed many times that someone will say something like “Oh I really like this pic of you” and then I’ll say back “Thanks! I really liked that pic of you at the river” or something along those lines. This reciprocation is a societal norm created to ease the tension or awkwardness of a first meeting. This idea of complimenting someone and getting a complement in return has been around for ages. So I stand by what I said in the handout. Even though much of our interaction is now online, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s basically the same as if we were doing it face to face.