[BFritz]

For one of my classes, one of the readings was about the internet making everything dull. We had to post topics on a blog on an online forum, and no thread has more than one response, most of them have no responses, but this thread that I posted got a few responses, so I'll post my original post and then the responses, just to hear everybody's thought on the issue that I brought up.

I called it "The Internet is paralyzing society"

"Nothing is too trivial to be included. Nothing is so important that it deserves a special place."

Levelling: the internet puts everyone and everything on the same plain. "For God, nothing is significant, and nothing is insiginificant." The danger of the internet is that everyone can take that godlike point of view, and decide what's worth looking at and reading and what's not. Hyperlinks put everything on the same page, making no special place for anything of any importance. Conversations and interactions online have made the interaction between two people almost meaningless, and it has made the human body and its sacred status obsolete. Typically, a person needs no social status or qualifications to access anything on the internet. Chat rooms leave the abilitity to play many different types of oneself, but none of which are ones true person. To me, a person surfs the net to avoid boredome, but, in doing so, they make everything lack any interest. The abilitity to distinguish between the trivial and the important stops being any interest, which leads to the very boredome that they were surfing the net to avoid.

All emotion, personal relationships, and deep feelings are being destroyed by the internet.

[BFritz]

Girl Classmate:

I very much agree with the last statement. All emotion and personal relationship is being destroyed by the internet. We are straying away from what is good in life, and not noticing why we really are here on this planet. If we just sit on the computer all day, then why is it even worth living? The internet is such a typical way out...and is quite boring. I mean of course everyone once in a while needs it to get information, but being addicted to it, in which i think most people are today, is something to be quite worried about. We aren't getting to expeince things ourselves and we are lazily being 'hand feed' information and resources to just get along with every day life. It's quite disturbing actually.

[BFritz]

Another girl classmate:
The internet definetly does numb us to a certain extent, but it's not ALL bad. For instance, I use the internet to stay in touch with my friends (whom I met in real life, not on the internet!) that go to different colleges across the US. I don't see how this is making me inauthentic in any way. Sure, I could just call them I guess, but it's so much easier to leave a message for someone and they can get back to you when they have time. The internet has good attributes along with the bad. It's our responsibility to make sure we don't get too caught up in living a virtual life that we forget how to live at all.

[BFritz]

Girl Classmate:
I agree with your statement that the internet is paralyzing soicety and all of the evident you had to back that statement up; although I do believe that the internet was not originally a bad thing and if used only in the right stituation can really help someone. For instance, communicating on the internet is only slightly different than talking to someone on the phone, giving less human contact but still talking to a specified person, as long as the two people communicating actually know each other in "real life" and also communicate in other ways, besides using the internet. Another common use for the internet is researching which also is not neccessarily a bad thing, it is very nice to have access to other college's information/resources without having to drive far distances to get it, but if a person believes all information that they find on websites, that are not from creditble sources then it becomes a bad thing. So basically the point I am trying to get acrossed is that the internet, used for the right purposes and in moderation is a good thing, but when used for the wrong purposes and in excess it then becomes a bad thing.

[BFritz]

Boy Classmate:
I have mixed emotions about the Internet. I do agree that the Internet has a dulling effect on human emotion. However, without the Internet where would we be? It has brought the whole world to our fingertips and lets people see a world that they might otherwise have never been able to see. On the other side of the coin though, too much of anything isn't good. Today people spend more time in front of the computer then any other activity. It is in a way making us like zombies. A terrible shooting on one side of the news page and the best movies of the summer on the other. How are we too emotionally decipher between the two. I think that there has to be a healthy balance.

[BFritz]

Girl Classmate:
I agree with your statement that the internet is paralyzing soicety and all of the evident you had to back that statement up; although I do believe that the internet was not originally a bad thing and if used only in the right stituation can really help someone. For instance, communicating on the internet is only slightly different than talking to someone on the phone, giving less human contact but still talking to a specified person, as long as the two people communicating actually know each other in "real life" and also communicate in other ways, besides using the internet. Another common use for the internet is researching which also is not neccessarily a bad thing, it is very nice to have access to other college's information/resources without having to drive far distances to get it, but if a person believes all information that they find on websites, that are not from creditble sources then it becomes a bad thing. So basically the point I am trying to get acrossed is that the internet, used for the right purposes and in moderation is a good thing, but when used for the wrong purposes and in excess it then becomes a bad thing.

My response:

I disagree even about the phone call being as good as the internet because "lol" isn't the same as actually hearing someone laugh and being able to get more of a feel of the depth of their emotion. The phone still isn't as good as face-to-face interaction, by any means, but it's a lot better talking to a human voice than it is typing to a computer screen.
I agree about the information part of it being good, but it is easy to figure out if a site has credentials and knowledge or not. That part of the internet and it's original purpose is good, like you said, and the communicating with people from far away is also good because it's hard to make schedules mix when people are in college plus working.
Another problem with the internet is the world used to be a huge and interesting place, and while it might be good that, at any one point, you could talk to someone on the other side of the world, at the same time it's destroying the amazement and wonder of the world. Like it's been mentioned a few times, using the internet to be fascinated and not bored destroys fascination altogether and leaves a person always bored. Instead of going to see things like Stonehenge, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, people are contempt with seeing pictures of it online, and MAYBE reading a sentence or two about it.

[Fenix]

Anything without moderation isn't good. Use the internet with moderation and you will be fine.

[BFritz]

Boy Classmate:
I have mixed emotions about the Internet. I do agree that the Internet has a dulling effect on human emotion. However, without the Internet where would we be? It has brought the whole world to our fingertips and lets people see a world that they might otherwise have never been able to see. On the other side of the coin though, too much of anything isn't good. Today people spend more time in front of the computer then any other activity. It is in a way making us like zombies. A terrible shooting on one side of the news page and the best movies of the summer on the other. How are we too emotionally decipher between the two. I think that there has to be a healthy balance.

My response:
That's a thought of mine, too. When I was growing up, and even into high school, internet was just in its first stages, and we were on it once a week, or month, if that. We spent all day outside playing basketball in driveways, baseball in empty lots, and tackle football. We'd have bloody noses and bruises all over, and that's not just from football, that's from everything. Kids today never do anything like that, and they're contempt with seeing a reflection of the real world on a screen which is the internet. Don't take the reflection of the real world part too literally, because I know that the internet and things are becoming so advanced that images and videos can look like things are right in front of you, but my point is that it's not the same.
The internet is destroying childhood and the wonder of the world by making kids and adults satisfied with staring at a computer monitor.