The Degradation of Communication on the Internet Essays -- Communicati

The Degradation of Communication on the InternetTalking on the Internet, people regress. Its that simple. It can be one-to-one talk on electronic mail or many-to-many talk on one of the LISTs or newsgroups. People regress, expressing sex and aggression as they never would face to face. Think about it. Current estimates word 23 million people communicate on the Internet from most of the nations on the globe, and that number is increasing at 12% a month. And all this right grew like Topsy, with no one planning or controlling it. Here is one of the extraordinary technological achievements, one of the great _human_ achievements, of our century. But _homo sapiens_ reverts to primitive, childish behavior. wherefore? There are three major signs or, if you will, symptoms of this regression. The one Internet primitivism that everybody talks about is flaming, flying into a typewritten rage at some perceived slight or blunder. Everywhere I went in the newsgroups, writes John Seabrook in _Th e untested Yorker_, I found flames, and fear of flames (1994, 70). No wonder. Seabrook had written a favourable piece on Bill Gates, the powerful president of Microsoft. In the profile, he made a point of the way he and Gates conducted their interview on e-mail. This is what appeared on Seabrooks screen (courtesy of a certain computer columnist) Crave THIS, asshole Listen, you toadying dipshit scumbag . . . remove your head from your rectum long enough to look around and notice that very reporters dont fawn over their subjects, pretend that their subjects are making some sort of special contact with them, or, worse, curry favor by TELLING their subjects how great the ass- lick profile is going to turn out and then brag in print about doing it... ...m.nerdc.ufl.edu_ 31 May 1994. Span, Paula. The On-line Mystique. _Washington Post Magazine_ 27 Feb. 1994, W11. Sproull, Lee, and Sara Kiesler. _Connections New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization_. Cambridge MA MIT P, 1991. Turkle, Sherry. _The Second Self Computers and the Human Spirit_. New York Simon and Schuster, 1984. Walker, Donna. Letter. _Washington Post Magazine_ 17 Apr. 1994, W3. Waterton, J. J., and J. C. Duffy. A Comparison of Computer Interviewing Techniques and Traditional Methods in the Collection of Self-report Alcohol Consumption Data in a Field Study. _International Statistical Review_ 52 (1984) 173-82. Weizenbaum, Joseph. _Computer Power and Human Reason From Judgment to Calculation_. San Francisco W. H. Freeman, 1976. Wright, Robert. Journey with Cyberspace. _Ottawa Citizen_ 18 Sep. 1993, B4.