ALIENATION AND THE INTERNET

Will Baker

5     Last weekend my wife and I invited our extended family to our home to celebrate our daughter’s birthday. During the celebration my young nephew spent the entire time on my computer playing a simulated war game. My brother-in-law and I were chatting nearby and it struck us that in generations past, his son, my nephew, would have been outside playing with his friends. But now the little fellow goes on line to play his games against his friends in cyberspace.

6     It seems to me that the Internet is a powerful tool that presents an opportunity for the advancement of the acquisition and application of knowledge. However, based on my personal experience I can understand how, as they surf the web some folks might be confronted with cognitive overload. And I can also understand how one might have his or her sense of reality distorted in the process. Is the Internet a real place? Depending upon how a “real place” is defined it might very well be. At the very least, I believe that when we use the Internet, we are forced to ask fundamental questions about how we perceive the world about us—perhaps another unintended consequence. Some would argue that the virtual existences created by some users who debate, shop, travel and have romance on line are in fact not real, while others would argue that, since in practical terms, folks are debating, shopping, traveling and having romance, the converse is true.