Weren't there stories just like this about the invention of the telephone? These kinds of reports mystify me, as if they're coming from someplace in the distant past and have only just now reached our present:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Surfing the net has become an obsession for many Americans with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web. [...]To which I want to say: "Duh." Talk to David Cronenberg about the use of technology as an extension of the human body and mind. He's been making movies about it for 30-something years. (Oh, and I don't think the term "digitivity denizens" is going to catch on. I'll be mortified if it does.)"People told us how anxious, isolated and bored they felt when they are forced off line," said Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, which conducted the survey to see how technology was changing people's behavior.
"They felt disconnected from the world, from their friends and family," she told Reuters.
The poll, released on Wednesday, found the use of cell phones and the Internet were becoming more and more an essential part of life with 48 percent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without Internet access.
More than a quarter of respondents -- or 28 percent -- admitted spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online.
It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online.
Cell phones won out over television in a question asking which device people couldn't go without but the Internet trumped all, regarded as the most necessary.
"It is taking away from offline activities, among them having sex, socializing face-to-face, watching TV and reading newspapers and magazines. It cuts into that share," said Mack. [...]
"We are calling them 'digitivity denizens,' those who see their cell phones as an extension of themselves, whose online and offline lives are co-mingled and who would chose a Wi-Fi connection over TV any day," said Mack.
"This is how they communicate, entertain and live."
Wouldn't the planet as a whole be a lot healthier if we used the web more and our cars less? Is the web allowing us to remain more in touch (and with more people) and do a better job of filtering out the people we don't want to have much contact with? Don't e-mail, chat and text technologies allow us more opportunities for instantaneous and regular contact with our real friends, regardless of geographical distance? Is there anything worse than being physically present in a room with people you don't want to be around? Is that not a terrible waste of the very essence of life -- your enjoyment of how you spend it? Is e-mail not more reliable and efficient than exchanging phone calls involving logistical or practical details? Do web services (bill-paying, prescription ordering, online scheduling, shopping, etc.) not reduce the time and drudgery expended on routine household maintenance tasks and errands (not to mention the cost parking and gasoline and the inconvenience of waiting on hold or in line)? On the other hand, isn't Scanners better than sex, anyway? (Don't answer that.)
Ann Mack will never be a trend-setter in the world of slang: digitivity denizen? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
The internet, cell phones, etc. are just new forms of communication. In ten or twenty years I'm sure we'll have other forms we can't even think of now. People are generally threatened by forms of communication that they are not a part of, feeling left out or bewildered. It's the same old story that's been going on for centuries, it's just been ramped up in the last twenty years or so with the increasing prevalance of computers. I still remember how long it took (years and years and years) before the New York Times stopped describing the internet as anything other than a crazed haven of murderers and pedophiliacs. Even now most popular journalism will focus on all that can go wrong in the online world rather than the wonderful advances made in communication, research and egalitarianism but that's just another old story and it shouldn't surprise us too much. Like the man said, when the plane lands and everybody's safe nobody cares. It's when it crashes that it makes the news.
Is there anything worse than being physically present in a room with people you don't want to be around? Is that not a terrible waste of the very essence of life -- your enjoyment of how you spend it?
Thank god someone's saying that. A few weeks ago Newsweek did a cover article on Facebook (which, I have to be fair, is a pretty worthless site in my estimation) and you can imagine the kind of responses that rolled in from the Baby Boomer set. They might as well have all begun "Well, in my day..."
You know, the usual myths about how "in my day" everyone hung out on street corners or in town squares together, implying (I guess) that just settling for the people who are geographically closest to you is some kind of virtue.
Me, I'm going to go ahead and build my social circle around such postmodern notions as "similar interests" and "sense of humor." Call me one to embrace the apparent decline of my generation.
Thank you! It's wonderfully refreshing to hear someone finally extoll the virtues of spending more time online instead of vilifying it!
But Cronenberg, you must know, got this stuff from Marshall McLuhan, who was one of his professors. McLuhan, credit where credit is due, was the first to think of all these things; technology being an extension of its user and each new major technological advancement effecting the evolution of our species. Brian O'Blivion of Videodrome, who said "the television screen has become the retina of the mind's eye," was very plainly McLuhan.
About three weeks ago, Andy Rooney was sputtering about the "new trend" of people watching movies at home and not in the theater. There's even this online service called Netflix that delivers DVDs right to your home. His opinion was that it's just not the same as going to the theater.
I won't make fun. I'll be old one day, I guess. And I'll be way behind the latest trends too.
I already am. I only got my first cell phone two months ago. And I always forget to turn it on.
I've been getting a good laugh out of these kinds of stories for years. There's an implicit assumption in all this net-fretting that we're all going to wake up one day without the desire for human contact and intimacy.
The net (and the telephone, for that matter) have actually expanded our capacity for connection, friendship, love, and just good old proximity to the people we like being around.
If there's anything more predictable than the updates on Facebook, though, it's the tut-tutting of the 'in my day' generation whenever a new technology changes how we interact with each other.
Trends? I've never cared about trends. If it's useful, it's great, if it's too expensive it's forgotten. Ipod I'm sure would be an amazing thing to own if it didn't cost half a thousand dollars. Same with PS3. Once things cost an exorbitant amount of money their usefulness becomes measured.
Hey Andy Rooney, sometimes, I watch movies on my computer...eat it!
Watching tv is now considered an "off-line activity", ha. Right up there with playing outside with your friends now I guess.
These words were far from lofty. I guess phones are bad too since it isn't socializing face-to-face. Oh, I guess unless you have a camera on your computer and can talk to people via visual links...does that count as face-to-face?
Don't feel bad, Chris. I'm 21 and my cell phone remains off a good 95% of the time.
The internet has been a part of my life for 12 of those 21 years -- ever since the days of Windows 3.1, AOL 2.5 and Wing Commander II. Thinking about it now, I realize the bafflingly huge amount of glorious things I've discovered thanks to the internet, especially during high school: Hendrix, Miles, Mahler, Altman, Truffaut, Mizoguchi, Pynchon, Gaddis, Lowry and so many more. It's really quite staggering.
Watching tv is now considered an "off-line activity", ha. Right up there with playing outside with your friends now I guess.
This is the part that blows me away, Phillip. I remember the weirdness of getting blasted by my parents for spending too much time on the computer, when I should've been socializing with the family -- in front of the TV. At least on the computer I was actually talking to folks, debating, developing ideas, and discovering new things. But TV is the central electronic addiction of the Boomers, something they had since their childhood, so I guess it's okay to them...
Nick,
Feh, I was on the internet back before they even had these crazy modern things like web browsers. You kids are spoiled. If we wanted to talk to someone else, we had to "finger" them (not as fun as it sounds), and then type gruelingly slow one or two line messages through "send".
And when I was helping run an online polling site, I had to count the web hits for each page _by hand_ and add them together to figure out which sections were most popular.
Plus I had to walk uphill both ways to the computer center.
:)
I love my Treo, but I can't remember the phone number. I just ask people to e-mail me (and I can check it between screenings!).
Christopher: Remember "Gopher"? Just a text command, but the first "search engine" I ever knew about. The "Google" of its day -- but even it didn't come along until 1991. Seems like a long time ago in some ways, but, heck, that was the same year as Windows 3.1. Apple had been using the Mac GUI for six or seven years by then...
Hi Jim:
Interesting Reuters article and blog post--
With the proliferation of social networking sites, more and more people are using the internet to make new friendships and enhance old ones.
Spending less time off-line doesn't signal the demise of friendship!
Best,
Irene
www.fracturedfriendships.com
Right on, Irene. Ten or 15 years ago, most people applied the (wrong) TV model to the Internet. Now, a huge percentage of what happens online is social interaction of one kind or another -- from e-mail to chat to blogging and comment posting. I don't see it as a one-thing-or-the-other situation.
Old people: I am consistently fascinated by your tales of the Internet's strange, wacky days of yore. I imagine it being like the wild west or something equally barren and lawless. Maybe a cross between Blood Meridian and Tron.
But with porn.
"There's an implicit assumption in all this net-fretting that we're all going to wake up one day without the desire for human contact and intimacy.
The net (and the telephone, for that matter) have actually expanded our capacity for connection, friendship, love, and just good old proximity to the people we like being around."
It's only been in the last four or five years that I've really come to appreciate the truly connective possibilities afforded by the Web through e-mailing, blogging and communicating through comments. I used to chalk up my own tendency to want to wall myself away to a period of personal tragedy that was roughly concurrent with getting my virtual feet wet ('round about 1996). But the truth is, in the long shadow of that tragedy I was surrounded by people who were tentative even in their friendship, and at the worst indifferent or dismissive. Real friends were hard to come by, and only a precious few stayed the course. Who wouldn't want to retreat into isolation when there's little beyond convenient comfort and platitudes with which to interact?
But it's pretty easy for me to see now that becoming Web active has played a very important role in getting my life back. Ken and R.I.D. are absolutely right-- the capacity to interact with people who can play active roles in our lives through similar interests, senses of humor, intellectual challenge, is one of the chief virtues of creating a network of friends through the Internet. And I think Jim hits it on the head too by conjuring up images of being in a roomful of people at a party or other type of gathering and having to play at enthusiastic interaction when what you'd really like to do is run away, into the presence of real friends (on the Internet or in your own physical space) who you actually WANT to spend time with.
Four years ago I had probably only one person (other than my wife) who I felt I could confide in-- my best friend. Now, thanks to a seemingly random decision to start blogging, I feel like I have more friends that I can even keep track of, many of whom I have even met in the flesh. But the fact that I haven't yet physically met others has not prevented them from becoming most valued friends and confidantes. This is the kind of unexpected, life-changing benefit-- real social interaction-- that isn't going to happen from watching TV.
Porn? All we had were places like LambdaMOO to go and have virtual (text-based) sex.
Eventually, you were able to do a search for "Alyssa Milano" to find soft-core pics, but that advance took some time.
-------------
I agree that on-line time is not anti-social time, but personally I have experienced real frustration with the move to virtual space. This might not be a factor for people with families and such, but when so many of the people you talk to on a regular basis are on-line, it still feels pretty isolating. Chatting online with a distant friend is still not the same thing as calling someone up and going bowling. Not even online.
And I do hate hate hate the way cell phones have changed the public space. Yes, I'm an old crank guy making a familiar complaint, and I fully acknowledge the many benefits of a cell phone. But in large part they have simply leveraged the human race's ability to indulge in banal conversation. Upon leaving a ballgame or a movie theater, is it really essential that every single person quickly pop open their phones to say "Yeah, I'm walking to the car now. Yeah, it was OK. All right, I'll call you later."
Amen, Christopher. Every time I subject myself to entering a mall, I end up flabbergasted at how many people are chattering-- can there be that much to say? (My favorite was witnessing a group of six young people-- age 21-ish-- separated by a few feet, each on a phone, and it became clear quickly that at least two of them were talking to someone in their own group as they cruised the food court!) My current pet peeve about cell phones is how they've quickly evolved for some people from convenient additional communication device to essential device to status symbol. Where I live, you must have one of those gigantic alien-looking earpieces attached to your head, the better that everyone know you're important enough that you're constantly in touch, that no call can be missed. Yeesh.
My complaint about cell phones (and in-car DVD players, etc) is what they do to the attention spans of people. I know I'm turning around now and sounding like the cranks I was decrying further up this thread, but isn't there just something bizarre about people not being able to sit friggin' still for 90 minutes and focus on one thing?
I was made marginally sympathetic to the in-car DVD thing by my sister, who has two kids with 18 months between them in age, both under 5. It helps the longer drives. But I handled 8-10 hour drives between Dallas and Birmingham just fine as a kid, and I couldn't even read due to car sickness... now I don't mind sitting in my own thoughts for awhile. I can't help but wonder if we're doing anything we can to avoid having actual meditative alone time.
Read The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Written 1909.
Lots of sex please - any white guys from anywhere