The very instant that my brain began to search out questions involving both the integrity of the social fabric and the impact of the Internet, I experienced what must be the collective nightmare of those people who fear the unsupervised use of the Internet. My mind's eye flashed bone-chilling pictures of the Columbine massacre, the Oklahoma City Murrah building explosion and the bungled attempt to topple the World Trade Center. However, the most terrifying vision involved the possibility that my children were locked in their rooms taking notes from an Internet provided version of the "Anarchist's Cookbook." It is quite clear that I did not read William A. Galston's article "Does the Internet Strengthen Community?" with an unbiased orientation. (Philosophy and Public Policy-Fall 99-p.1-8)[ Does the Internet Strengthen Commmunity- http://www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/fall1999/in... ]
Galston demonstrates that technological advancements have always had some degree of power to disrupt the dynamics of the social equilibrium. Electric lights, the backseats of automobiles and television were all potential catalysts of societal disruption. Change's very nature cannot avoid unsettling intrusions into our lives. However, as long as change occurred at a reasonable rate there might be time for a cost-benefit analysis and to allow for congruency between ethics and practice. While the ever-ringing telephone was for your popular daughter, it did allow you to say hello to distant friends.
However, did afternoon television draw the adult population in doors and away from the supervision of our children? Growing up during the 1950's in Brooklyn, I always encountered an adult willing to tell my father if I had committed some wrong deed. Did television, the growth of the automobile-driven suburbia and finally working mothers create the child-dominated communities?
Now the Internet, largely unsupervised by parents, using the cover of "pseudonymity" creates virtual communities. Virtual communities of shared interests rather geographical proximities. Participation in these communities is now the second most frequent Internet activity behind email. Support groups, celebrity enthusiasts, and even library archivists use cyberspace as a meeting place.
Some critics counter, "a community is more than a bunch of people distributed in all twenty-four times zones, sitting in their dens and pounding away on keyboards news in alt.music.indigo girls. That's not a community: it's a fan club..."(J. Snyder-Internet Commentator. )
Supporters of the notion of virtual communities argue against the need for a community to have deeply planted geographical roots. These online communities develop complex systems of internalized norms. This normative behavior rises in response to promoting shared purposes, safeguarding the quality of group discussions and managing the scarce resources available to them.
Go To Page: 1 2
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Glenn Hameroff's Research Tools topic, please visit the Discussions page.