I think that the most important social or cultural effect of technology varies depending on whom you, ask and at what point in each person’s life which you ask him or her. For me, currently access is the most important effect. When I get online it is primarily for access, whether it be for researching something for a paper, checking when my next assignment is due or simply googling something I want to know more about. I do use the Internet for its community in regards to social networking, but my lack of an updated Facebook profile should be evidence enough that community is not the most important effect for me. However, for the first year that I had Facebook, community may have been the most important social and cultural feature for me. People that use Internet for its community primarily could be using it for a number of different reasons, according
to the article “How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook into the Web’s Hottest Platform” People want to use the community feature to keep in touch with their friends that they already have “ People already have their friends, acquaintances and business connections, rather than building new connections we are just mapping them out.” The article on the Benefits of Facebook “Friends” agrees with this in saying, “ “Facebook users engage in searching for people with whom they have an offline connection, more than they browse for complete strangers to meet.” A concern with facebook is that as it reaches more and more people it will become less useful. According to the article “Facebook Grows Up”, Robert Putnam says “Facebook was originally a classic alloy, bonding the Internet and the real world”, “but now he says it feels less rooted in real life”. For me this has been true, I became a member on Facebook, my sophomore year of college and used it frequently, up until I was about to graduate. I think as people become more settled in their lives and start pursuing their careers, finding spouses, building houses and having babies social networking loses the luster it once had when they were in college and what was important then was needing to know what your friends were up to and who was in a relationship with who, and searching for the guy you met the night before at the bar was important. It’s a natural progression to lose touch with friends and college acquaintances as you get older and become more involved in your own life. I don’t care to know what my sorority sister that I barely knew is doing with her life. In my opinion Facebook has yet to find an application that would cause me to use it as much as I has as an undergrad in college.
Some people may use the community aspect of the Internet and social networking for other reasons than simply keeping in touch with friends. When the Internet and social networking becomes more of an identity than a community is when I think it can be the most disturbing cultural or social effect of technology. This issue varies from people who have Internet addictions to those who perhaps just want to experiment with their own identity. People who develop Internet addictions come to the Internet because they have difficulty forming strong and weak ties alike with others, according to the article The Benefits of Facebook Friends. In the article “ A review of research addiction” “ we can draw a tentative conclusion that the Internet itself is not addictive but that some Internet applications especially those with interactive functions appear to contribute to the development of pathological Internet use”. Persons dependent on the internet typically use it 39 hours online per week, are typically males in their late teens, and predominately use the internet for its 2 way communication features such as chat rooms, role playing games and newsgroups. The more and more time that is spent online the more likely that these users will use the Internet for social support. Which almost makes it seem like a vicious cycle for those susceptible to Internet addiction. The social domain of the Internet is powerful and it offers social support, interpersonal contacts and a sense of belonging that the person may not have in real life due to their inability to make ties with others. It becomes their identity. Even more disturbing to me than Internet addiction, is when people feel the need to create different identities online, sometimes just one and sometimes a plethora of them through a MUD. As the article Identity in the age of the Internet states “ you are who you pretend to be”. MUD’s can be different parts of your personality, or someone you have always wanted to be. In the article one college junior plays four characters one being a women and one a rabbit that functions as his voyeuristic character. It is true that “people are embracing the notions that computers may extend an individuals physical presence” and in one way I think that this can be viewed as perhaps a healthy way of experimenting with ones identity and role playing as long as it doesn’t take over ones identity, but in another it seems to feed some sort of desire to have an alternate life than they one they already which could turn into an unhealthy preoccupation resulting in internet addiction or loss of identity except for the one or ones on the internet. Such as the college student who prefers to live in his MUD created apartment as opposed to his dorm room. “The distance we once have with computers is no longer being preserved.”
For most the Internet can provide many useful functions such as accessibility, social networking and identity, but when ones identity become rooted in cyberspace it turns into an incredibly disturbing place.
No comments:
Post a Comment