Friday, October 1, 2004

The internet and you... and me

Again, one thought leads to several completely different ones. I was sitting in the doctor's office the other day, thumbing through a MacLeans magazine. My eye was caught by the headline: A Winnipegger's death goes unnoticed for two years. Thank his computer. It seems Jim Sulkers' death was not discovered for almost two years, partly because his monthly pension cheques were automatically deposited to his bank account, and all his bills were automatically paid the same way.

The article goes on to talk about the impacts of new technologies, including the internet, on society. It mentions two studies that seem to show that "frequent Internet use leads to a decline in social support, family communication and the size of one's social network, and an increase in depression and loneliness." That, however, is a broad sweeping statement that dramatically oversimplifies the results of the studies. One of them, the Home Net Project, found that people who used the internet for entertainment actually experienced less depression. It was people who used the internet primarily as a means of interpersonal communication that experienced the above symptoms.

This strikes me rather like the brouhaha about Dungeons and Dragons in the eighties. There were several widely reported incidents in which people who were avid D&D players  committed crimes, or suicide, and the game was said to have been a factor. Next thing you knew, everybody was up in arms saying that D&D caused psychological problems in teens. Do an internet search today, and you will still find web sites devoted to the eradication of the game. After everybody calmed down, and some actual scientific studies were conducted, it was found that taking an otherwise normal and well adjusted teen, and exposing him or her to the Dungeons and Dragons game had absolutely no deleterious effects. The fact was that the fantasy/role-playing nature of the game simply attracted a certain type of people, many of whom had a less than solid grip on reality to start with. It was the troubled teens who gravitated to D&D, not the game that caused the  teens' troubles.

Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and we have this wonderful technology that allows us to communicate with people all over the world. Not only that, but it allows us to do it in a completely anonymous fashion. In fact, not only can we disguise our identity, we can create a completely imaginary one. We can pretend to be anything: an airline pilot on a dating service, a thirteen year old girl in a chat room, a cancer patient in an online journal. It is the mask I mentioned in a previous entry, that lets us be something different, something more than we are. It's the Polyjuice Potion of the computer world, that gives us the confidence to take chances we normally would have shrunk from. So is the internet creating a whole generation of depressed, anti-social misfits, or are the depressed, anti-social misfits simply flocking to the internet because of its safety? Because of its mask value? Mothers, watch your children.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember D&D.  I couldn't get into it.  And I remember the news reporting that the kids that roleplayed were committing crimes.  Scary stuff for a while.  However, I did dig the cartoon!

I feel bad for Mr Sulkers tho'.  It's definitely not the way I would like to go.  

Anonymous said...

Paul, I enjoyed this articleYah know, the "stimuli" is different for everyone...some bite and live, some bite and dont........Ok, that was stupid analogy,lol...but yah know what I mean...I think humans are complex.....I think most of the time if we eat only one thing, that one thing begans to take an unhealthy control recognizing its a different measure for every different person...

I know this loner guy,,,we dont talk anymore but I had told him how my dream was to live in the mountains for a year and not talk to a single person....well he had did this,,and he said he started to feel crazy,, talking to himself,,etc. He said humans arent made for isolation....well,,I still want to do it,,,to give it a try but I know if I bit just that, I would loose something else...besides,,talking to myself only means I always win,,rlol....great article

Anonymous said...

No... I think the internet has its limits at some points, like everything else, but I also think that it could help some people. Lies are not important; masks are not important. People going to psychological counselling might tell tales... it's not important. They are still talking about themselves, their raw self in many ways. Every one deserves respect and attention, not only the sick and bright. It seems to me that what you described with those having fake identities on the net is not worse or better than having a real one. Something will come out for both kinds of people, something positive eventually. I am most surprised by the reactions of people always being attracted by extremes than the human in the story.
Valerie