When one speaks to William Huie, his soft-spoken voice reveals his personality — even before he says he is shy. But when he is in front of a computer screen, he is a different person. He smiles, furiously types and sometimes laughs while instant messaging and playing games with online friends.
Huie corresponds with his friends mostly through e-mail and instant messaging, or IM. Teens are communicating online more than ever before, and in some cases, it’s helping them to improve their writing ability and social skills. But it’s also keeping them from going out with friends and feeling comfortable meeting people face-to-face.
“Online, you don’t really have the pressure you may have when meeting someone in person,” said 17-year-old Robin Liu, an Irvington High School senior.
Classmates often rely on Liu to help them remove viruses from their computers or deal with other technical problems.
Liu said he would rather meet people in a chat room than in person, because the conversation is more informal and less personal — which makes him feel more at ease.
“There’s no need to get to know each other well,” he said.
But the impersonal nature of electronic communication also can be considered a major downside, said Brigid Barron, an associate professor who researches technology in classrooms at Stanford University’s School of Education. She suggested families create a technology room to confine all electronic communication to one space.
She said the new trend isn’t all bad. She said it can help students communicate better because they learn how to think and write faster. “I see it as a new way of chit-chat,” she said. “If kids are social, they’ll interact in IM and in public.”
Huie, a freshman at Independence High School in San Jose, said he prefers the former. He spends several hours once a week — or more when his allowance can cover the $4-an-hour charge — at Cyber Hunt Café in Milpitas.
He sipped a pearl iced tea and played “Counter Strike,” a computer game, at the café on a recent afternoon. A buddy from Palo Alto, whom he sees only once every couple of months, signed on and joined him in the game. At one point, Huie chuckled.
“My friend got stabbed,” he explained, smiling. “In the game.”
The Internet is a way to socialize and, at the same time, get away. “I sort of have some quiet time to my self,” he said.
Some teens said technology makes them more social because it allows their friends to reach them anytime. Lynbrook High School student Rajiv Makhijani said he keeps AOL instant messenger on all day, every day. “People can then leave messages for me anytime, even when I’m not there,” Makhijani wrote — in an interview conducted over instant messenger.