The Net ! Isolating or Increased Connectivity ?

[Gaia]

I've been thinking about how the Internet has changed personal and interpersonal relationships in the last 15 years. Before, if you spent hours sitting in front of your computer, reading and/or posting information, it often meant an increased isolation for the individual. Now, especially with Tweeties and Facebucks, the internet actually increases our sense of connection with others. People I haven't been in touch with for years now get daily updates about my activities and what every is on my mind that I decide to share. I know more about what is happening with my grown kids on a day to day basis than I did when we shared a home ! And on forums, friendships are formed with total strangers more readily than if you go sit at a bar where no one really speaks to others that they did not go out with or already know.

But are we really more connected or are we just learning to cope within a society where isolation is rampant and the norm. There are people here that I have shared ups and downs with, laughs and arguments, ideas and dreams for months now. The same people ! Is it a positive to have these strong internet connections ? Would we have more face-to-face friends and relationships if we didn't have our internet friends to fill in the gap ?

Is this a positive in our lives or are we slowly losing the true and meaningful relationships that bring value to our lives ?

[NancyV]

If it weren't for the Internet I would not have met my husband 15 years ago in a Tarot chat room on AOL. So I am one who sees the benefits of connectivity that the Internet can bring to ones life. Others may find it more isolating. I have also made several new friends over the last 15 years and keeping in touch with old friends and with family is easier and more fun than when we had only telephones and letters.

What I love MOST about the Internet is connecting with vast amounts of information!

Nancy

[Teakai]

Hi Gaia - my take on it is that people are community people. For the most part they desire to be with other people, sharing and communicating. Swapping ideas and news and recipes and all sorts of stuff.

Pre - TV we would all be out on the street and mingling with each other - then came TV which absorbed us and became our family - and then came the internet which once again allowed us to connect with real people.
And this time it broadened our scope so much more.

My how the elites must detest the internet. They'd much rather control our mental diet with crap TV and propaganda.

[58andfixed]

Both.

Connected to express an opinion, but disconnected from each others' divine spark.

Isn't helping matters.

However, if one understands the issues that help to bind us, and the issues that help to divide, not surprising.

- 58

[Gustav]

I think that the internet as a community of webpages made by people is more dividing than bringing together. It comes from the active use of it that relationships indeed can be forged, but the shallowness in general provides no tools for real life connections. Reading is becoming more and more impossible for many people. Talking, but more importantly listening to people is also becoming more and more difficult because they are used to flashy things in their screens, sending text messages, tweets, etc, so they don't have to talk. People think that this replaces real contact because they get an answer in that same way. I agree with 58andfixed, it is taking away the divine spark of human connection and will ultimately lead to separation. Individual stories that are either positive or negative in this respect do not matter much for the general populace, it only relates to that person and those involved.

A plant on its own will grow, a plant in a garden will flourish. That's the difference.

[jeoseeker]

I think that the internet is a positive, we are communicatng with people all over the planet in real time, as for the human connection i can see that there is a point of separation but this can be viewed as good thing as you have to think about what you are going to type instead of noise falling from mouths

[Gaia]

My how the elites must detest the internet.

The Net is brain candy to most of us. With the Internet we have a much louder megaphone with which to scream who we really are as human being.

[The One]

But are we really more connected or are we just learning to cope within a society where isolation is rampant and the norm

Exactly as most of us are only too aware, change comes more and more rapidly. Technological breakthroughs spread through society in years rather than centuries. Calculations that would have taken decades are now made in minutes. Communication that used to take months happens in seconds. Development in every area is happening more and more rapidly.



In my day

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY ,no video/dvd films,no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms...........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them.

Those were the days oh yes those were the days

[sshenry]

Posted by Gaia (here)
I've been thinking about how the Internet has changed personal and interpersonal relationships in the last 15 years. Before, if you spent hours sitting in front of your computer, reading and/or posting information, it often meant an increased isolation for the individual. Now, especially with Tweeties and Facebucks, the internet actually increases our sense of connection with others. People I haven't been in touch with for years now get daily updates about my activities and what every is on my mind that I decide to share. I know more about what is happening with my grown kids on a day to day basis than I did when we shared a home ! And on forums, friendships are formed with total strangers more readily than if you go sit at a bar where no one really speaks to others that they did not go out with or already know.

But are we really more connected or are we just learning to cope within a society where isolation is rampant and the norm. There are people here that I have shared ups and downs with, laughs and arguments, ideas and dreams for months now. The same people ! Is it a positive to have these strong internet connections ? Would we have more face-to-face friends and relationships if we didn't have our internet friends to fill in the gap ?

Is this a positive in our lives or are we slowly losing the true and meaningful relationships that bring value to our lives ?

The internet is a wonderful tool; it allows us to quickly access information that would have taken days, weeks, even months of research in pre-internet days. It's allowed me to do what I love (writing) full-time - and from home nontheless!

The internet is a great tool for enhancing communication and bringing people together. Email and IM's and Social sites like Facebook have allowed me to keep in touch with family and forums such as Avalon and others have allowed me to forge new friendships with people I probably would never have met otherwise and who's friendships have greatly enriched my life.

But notice that I used the word "tool."

A tool is to be used, but it is the servant, not the master, and when something takes over your life, you have a problem. For so many people, the internet has taken the place of face-to-face communications. Let me site an example:

Last year I went to visit my daughter during her freshman year of college, and at one point she took me to a friend's dorm room, and there, in the room, there were eight kids, each of them sitting with a laptop in front of them ALL OF THEM TALKING TO EACH OTHER ONLINE. Seriously, they were IM'ing each other, I was astounded. I'm proud to say that when my daughter realized what they were doing she went around the room snapping laptops down and telling them all to GET A F'ING GRIP!

but can you see the problem? Many people don't just text each other to 'keep in touch', they would RATHER text or email, or whatever.

The tool has become the master for so many, and that is DEFINITELY a problem.

[crosby]

hey my friend, i too remember a time, like stated in The Ones' post that we didn't have access to all of these great technological advances. when i was a teenager, atari was just coming about, you remember: the little ping-pong size ball that just bounced back and forth across the screen? i really didn't play it. or any of the other games that came after. but i remember having a freer mind then. communication was so easy. idealism wasn't thought of as a bad thing, it was the colorful imagination of youth. in the old days, we went out and made our friends on a face to face level, had parties, swam in the local swimming holes together. went to the library to look up information. of course, we were all sleeping then. so it was so easy.

now, not so easy. if you want information, you can't really find it all at your local library. you can't get the answers you're searching for from your parents, your teachers or your friends. so you come to the local internet. where you will find exactly what you're looking for. that's why i came here. as you grow wiser, your need to communicate on a face to face basis diminishes yet, your desire for friendships do not. so there are blessings and condemnations from my point of view regarding this issue. i have learned so much here. i would not have learned this information from my parents, teachers or friends. they are all now learning from me.
warmest, corson

[butcherman]

meeting the hole planet all of the time more importantly like minded people what worries me is how frail and corrupt it is what happenes to our brief encounter if it fails how do we meet converse group and learn we need a building with all that is electronic immortal to publicly view just incase ?

[butcherman]

what if
Imagine for one moment, a hole generation of young people without a record of their past identity,no internet no phone, they have no idea how to contact each other, the prehistoric times can be switched on at anytime as elders we have address books old photos stored history artefacts what will our kids have if the electronic foot print { web } is removed ?

[Gaia]

what if
Yeah ! What if ? Imagine for one moment, a hole generation of young people without a record of their past identity,no internet no phone, they have no idea how to contact each other, the prehistoric times can be switched on at anytime as elders we have address books old photos stored history artefacts what will our kids have if the electronic foot print { web } is removed ?

With its chat rooms, online discussion Groups, Blogs, Profile pages and Web forums Internet offers formerly unknown possibilities for communication and personal expression. Every new technology that passes by also brings along the shadow of criminality and indecency that follows. We are living in an era in which anybody can publish anything about all the others. It is hard to remain individually in control of your own reputation. On internet a trace of information fragments about us is saved, which are accessible to anyone via a Google query. The possibility of saying anything under the protection of a pseudonym may lead to viral forms of public humiliation and the dissemination of malicious gossip. It leads to a permanent chronicle of our private lives (Sometimes not very reliable and sometimes completely false) This chronicle pursues us wherever we go, and is accessible to friends, strangers, potential lovers, neighbours, relatives and so on. Our children have access to communication technologies whose power far exceeds their ability to handle them. Cyberbullying and the exchange of inappropriate images are emerging as the number one issue confronting the safety and wellbeing of young people. Imagine that you wake up one morning to find out you have no memory ! You're not ..... World into which they were born..... ???

[Referee]

I feel the PTB are frustrated with it. They have worked so long and so hard to fragment society and compartmentalize us. They want us to stay in our small box. Our box is family friends co-workers and maybe church etc. This increases their control over us if you step out of your box you are ridiculed and chastised, branded as a outcast. With the free flow of ideas on the net we can beat down their walls. We may not have the connectedness of interpersonal interaction. Maybe they fear that more?