Internet play's a great part in our lives. Today that rule stands for the ages 12-40, a couple of generations later will be the 8-80. So it probably is a good time we start wondering what is we gain and what is we lose from being a netizen. How does it reacts confronting our mind and how our nature and soul.
There are cases taking place around me for the past years that make me wonder about how
good or bad internet is for us, but it took the below really distressful article to actually sit down and try to gather my thoughts about it.
I won't expand much into the good things internet has brought to our lives because I do not disagree, for instance, on how much internet has helped in developing an extremely valuable database of information which continuously expands in everything humans participated in. Finding information about everything is such a miracle that I joyfully smile every time I come to think of it. Using the internet gives one all the tools he/she needs to become gain expertise in
whatever he/she desired. You only need an internet connection and knowledge thirst. What I need to expand into though are the non-tangible things that that internet also brought along.
I mean, that young man, and others like him, who committed suicide on a
live internet channel. Why did he do that?I mean he could have done it by
himself with no crowd in a thousand ways, or with crowd in a public place. Why that way? From testimonies, he developed the idea in a social network (probably we generated it before that though). But lets leave that aside for the moment.
What about internet social networking. First it was IRC now its Facebook, friendfeed, mySpace etc. internet burst with applications attracting people worldwide. All count on fundamental people needs. But the truth is that people are usually not the same kind of people online as they are offline. Ruthless and mean people in real life prefer kind and romantic avatar's or poetic figures. Boys that are bullied in real life or nice, warm people, prefer great signing fighters and pretend to be nasty and villain in forums and chat rooms. There is a new character born in our net-life, something that we probably didn't choose to be in our real life or couldn't be. And why couldn't we? Because in real life we are tangible, we are known to others, there are laws, we can be hurt, we have things to become and we do here will follow us to life.
But in the net...We can do anything. Be anyone. We can be someone today and another one tomorrow. We can: act as bad or as good as we want, just becaule we feel like it. Hurt or help whoever we want just for making
things interesting. Offer real love or look for easy sex or whatever comes up, in hundreds of people simultaneously by glancing in photos. You can do
whatever you imagine, and then take it all back. We can be gods.
The internet adds a layer of anonymity that makes people behave irrationally and in most public forums seems to bring out the worst in us because of it. Youtube comments is an example of just how bad we treat each other when you don't have a real identity attached and therefore no real consequences (in most cases).
You feel free on the net. Its the need
to belong that makes us socialize in internet rooms in a self-part we create. Its the need to feel attractive that makes people obsessed with social networks. Its the personal and human needs we cover deep inside us that make us look in the internet's remarkable horizons for whatever we miss in the real life's limited sky.
And when we do all that? Then we want more. Internet becomes an obsession. The return in real life can become a painful experience.
It can then become really hard to tell what are the things that actually matter to you most and even more accepting the fact that you need to struggle in all of your life to achieve them and you may not even make it. Things can become so dissappointing and blur, that log-out becomes an option. But, watch it when your second-life becomes your first... you can never log-in again.
