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Browsing Alone
In his book, Putnam argues that our access to the "social capital" that is the payoff for community and civic work is shrinking. Though the reasons are complex, technology and mass media are primary factors, Putnam says. We spend more time at home watching TV (and, increasingly, working and amusing ourselves online) and less with other people. Our detachment from communal efforts -- and opportunities to meet other people -- grows. In l960, 62.8 percent of voting-age Americans went to the polls to choose between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon; in l996, after decades of slippage, just 48.9 percent chose Bill Clinton over Bob Dole. The inverse correlation between the rise of screen-driven entertainment technologies and civic disconnection is persuasive. So is the epidemic hostility online.
Although Putnam's book focuses on TV more than the Net (since TV is older and its use has been more widely studied), it's impossible not to think about the new ways networked computing may contribute to this disconnection. The Net is the world's greatest communications medium, but the notion of cyberspace as providing a social connection -- remember the virtual community? -- has turned out to be a fantasy. In many ways, the intensely connective Net is helping people become more disconnected all the time. It's the new TV.
This is of no small consequence, Putnam argues. Social bounds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction. Communities with low social capital have poor schools, more teen pregnancies and child or youth suicide, and higher prental mortality. Social capital is also the most reliable indicator of crime rates and other measurable quality-of-life issues. Such disconnection has happened before in American life, Putnam writes, especially during periods of great migration and immigration, but it was reversed by periods of stability and the rise of organizations like the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and thriving religious organizations.
Of all the many dimensions along which forms of social capital vary, writes Putnam, perhaps the most important is the distinction between "bridging" (or inclusive) and "bonding" (or exclusive). Some forms of social capital are, by choice or necessity, he writes, inward looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups -- fraternal organizations, church-based women's reading groups, snooty country clubs. Other networks are outward looking and encompass people across diverse and different social networks -- youth service groups, civil rights organizations, ecumenical religious associations.
The Net, it was originally believed, would be a "bridging" technology, one that would connect the planet. But the most interesting evolution in software in recent years has been code that permits people to narrow, not expand, their universes. Blocking and filtering software has become epidemic to product against flamers, crackers and spammers. The explosion in weblogs, specialized mailing lists, instant messaging and other so-called p2p media means that people online increasingly talk only to one another, not to people who are different or unfamiliar. The rise of this narcissistic communications is understandable, but it hardly is inclusive. People all over the Web routinely block and filter points of view they don't like or don't want to hear (or buy), so nobody online really ever has to encounter all that discordant diversity that digital technology makes possible. More disconnection.
Thanks in part to the Net, Americans have never had so many reasons to stay home, so many entertaining or useful options when they do. I remember an e-mail I got from a grandmother last year lamenting all the TV ads showing AOL grandmas getting pictures of their grandchildren. "That's nonsense," she says. "My kids don't visit me nearly as much because they feel they can just e-mail me. I love digital pictures, but I rarely get to see my grandchildren in person." Her lament -- the illusion of connection, while facing the reality of tech-spawned separation -- was intriguing.
The rise of the Net would seem to have exacerbated this tendency. Americans had already been spending an enormous amount of time watching television. Putnam found that 80 percent of all Americans watch some TV every evening, while only about 60 percent talk with their families nightly, let alone neighbors, strangers or others. Watching TV has become one of the few universal experiences of contemporary American life.
Increasingly, the Net is one too. It promises consumer use as great as television's, if not greater, since work connects with home. This seems especially ironic, since the Net was supposed to be one of the most powerful devices ever for connecting with humans. Mostly, it connects us with bits and links. In a sense, it is a connective medium. We can stay in touch with friends, colleagues and family members all over the planet. But Americans use the Net to get free data from music to weather, send messages, play games, shop and talk about sex. So the Net could exacerbate the techno-trend that television began. We're e-mailing and browsing alone as well as bowling. The Net could have an ever more striking impact, since it enables users to do things TV doesn't -- like play games and shop for nearly everything. Those, among others, were activities that people once had to go outside to do, where they might glimpse or even speak with a neighbor -- or go bowling.
America was founded partly on the notion of common civic spaces -- taverns, greens. A lot of cyber-idealists thought the Net was becoming our new common space. That hasn't happened. Nasty teenagers, spammers and greedy corporatists have made common turf on the Net either too expensive, hostile or annoying for most people to spend much time on.
Putnam's idea about social capital might be even more timely relevant than he understood.
About 40% of the responses are "Search Google!".
It does both. If I am interested in something, I let my friends know about it. If they like it, more often than not, we will check it out together. A perfect example of this is muds. I know most here have probably dabbled at a mud or two back in the day, so this hopefully will stay somewhat on topic. I was a fledgling netizen in the early 90's. A friend of mine introduced me to a mud, and I watched him play for a while. I soon became interested in this, and we started playing together, me on one pc, him on the other. Soon, we introduced other people to it. More and more people joined us, and we would have mud gatherings. Now, that is an example of how you can get a group online doing something together. For the opposite example, when IRC first came out, that was most definetely something I did on my own, as I didn't want to take the abuse from my friends when they would read a response or something. IRC required a bit of privacy. No big deal. The bottom line IMO is if you are typically a closed person with few friends outside of your computer life, then chances are you surf alone. If you have friends outside of the net that are interested in you, then you will do stuff together. Loners will be alone, those that aren't won't. Or something like that. Anyhow, my $.03
Sent from your iPad.
As Katz stated, many places on the net
> turned to exclusive p2p "me media," the
> fragmented, often self-censored, personalized
> and specialized weblogs
[...]
That's my main concern. You see censorship almost everywhere popping up like mushrooms, be it Napster-like services blocking content or Slashdot bitchslapping whole threads because they "are not what we like our users to see" (this was practiced in the infamous "troll survey" thread).
Is there anything we can do against this? Maybe. A few years ago there was a company that provided a "second opinion" service for websites. Users were able to comment on certain pages and could also see the comments from other users visiting the site. No support from the commented sites was required, since the whole process was handled by a plugin.
This seemed like a rather useless idea back then, but come to think about it, I must admit I've changed my opinion.
C. M. Burns
I read half way through the second sentence, then looked up at the submitter. Yup, another JonKatz diatribe. As sensational as it is empty calories.
i ng-their-engines. I'd bet I was the only person in the State of Colorado. Yet, that group provides valuable insight, as the collective has the knowledge I need to complete the restoration.
What's never mentioned in these sensational diatribes on how TV, the Internet, Automobiles, Reading, and Fire isolate us from our community is how social people tend to be social and non-social people tend to be non-social.
Geeks have their own social groups and operate just FINE there, with robust interactions and healthy communications.
I've found the Internet allows me to discuss and communicate with folks I'd never have a chance to in the photographic community.
I've found that email and IM makes communication with my parents cheap and effortless, even though they're 1200 miles away.
I've run a local Corvette club for YEARS that wouldn't have occurred had I not met these folks on the internet.
The internet allows for some loosely connected groups that WOULDN'T EXIST without it. A continual subscription to ThinkNIC allows me to get the support from the company directly, as well as talk to an audience of like minded folk that use the NIC. That social group is tenuous enough that there would never be a Denver ThinkNIC group worth attending, much less a thinknic club of lower North Dakota. There's maybe 50 people NATIONWIDE on that list.
Further, the Corvette Forum may have 1200 folk, but if you're looking for Automatic-1989-convertible-owners-who-are-rebuild
Don't blame the Internet. Non-social people would be that way with or without the Internet just as repeated handwashing is not the cause, nor facilitator, of obsessive-compulsive behavior.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I'm a college student, and as a college student, I'm at the peak of my social career. I use the net and my computer more than ever but that definately doesn't detract from my socializing.
There are many more factors involving why people are turning to the net instead of socializing outwardly. Lets face it, you can't name "BoyScouts and thriving religious organizations" as the namesakes of socialization. Family and religious values went right out the window a long time ago due to science and the information age. When you see Islam, Buddhism, etc. on TV and in the paper, you start to rethink that maybe your beliefs aren't "perfect". I'm not saying religion doesn't have its place, but free information prevents you from being sheltered in.
If you want to show the connection between social interaction and the net, find out how often people communicate with distant relatives compared to how they used to. Compare the social hierarchy of the current workplace to that of the 50's and 60's. Take a look a GOOD look at how communication with the deaf has changed with the advent of instant messaging. Take a look at what things now take up people's time in terms of work and play. You need to take every factor into account.
- gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
the question then is, what is the internet/web's role in a changing social/community structure? if anything, i'd be inclined to argue that the internet enables precisely the kind of loose connections wuthnow describes. i would also say (purely impressionistically) that we now have a greater sense of a world community of which we are part, and that is thanks largely to the expansion of the internet and its adoption as a source of news. i have one word, in this regard: nettime.
"I've come to the conclusion that revolutions aren't profitable." -kevin kelly
I'm not sure Putnam's description of declining voting applies here. Of course presidential voting has declined. Presidential politics has declined. Why does it deserve participation? Perhaps more people just disregard the whole circus as irrelevant.
TV and the Net function very differently in this context. TV has fragmented quite a bit as cable proliferated and split into niches. When there were only a few shows on, you could expect your neighbor to have watched a given program with some confidence. Can you expect your neighbor to have read a thread on K5? The Net seems to be even more divisive than TV in this sense.
However, the Net may allow tighter communities of smaller interest. You can find people of very esoteric interests on the Net, but do you meet them IRL? except for LUGs, I can't say that I have. But when new in town, finding a group is a big help, particularly if the group has a strong social feeling. One of the better user groups I know of meets in a bar and catches a local blues band; meetings are primarily social, lists are technical.
Connections within an online community can be fragile. Katz describes the failure of the public spaces online. Obnoxiousness may come in many forms. Could be snotty kids, or snooty power-hungry editor/moderators. What happened to The First Troll Post Inv. is a perfect example of community forming around an issue online and getting slapped for their trouble. Many users trying improve the quality of communication and community on /. got whacked because of the childish insecurity of some editors.
How can an online community like /. engender real community when it is censored? Won't happen. Will I get modded down for linking to the forbidden post in a relevant subject? Could be...Burn, Karma, Burn!
Sig?
Sigue Sigue Sputnik!!!
I've got a serious question about moderation. My original post was (when I wrote this) modded down twice really quickly as "offtopic".
I was really surprised at this, because it wasn't some first-post or other obvious "offtopic"-candidate. The article was (to me) about retreating from the "real" world into the "virtual" world of the internet. The songtext was the very first thing that sprang to my mind. Now, it might be that poetry and so isn't considered on-topic on slashdot (if so, please reply...). But just look at the following short quote which - to me - is spot-on regarding this article:
I need some friends and conversation
the keyboard shapes the words I'd like to share
my mind's on-line for hard communication
and open to the wider world aware
I need conversation - but I do it only online...
Reinout van Rees
Excellent point. I recall using BBSes a great deal during those first formative "online" years. Dialing up was a pain in the ass unless you had a BBS host that was cool enough to have two phone lines into his house/bedroom. Half the time you actually knew most of the people who frequented the site and met those that you didn't. Actually knowing these people also had a worthwhile effect: it cut down the flaming to managable levels. It's easy to troll or flame when you've never met a person and probably never will, but when you know that you'll a) be talking to a person on a consistent basis for the foreseeable future and b) there's an excellent chance of actual face-to-face in RL, you tend to try to keep a least a bit of civility. Perhaps the concept of nodes is a good idea. The net itself remains completely connected and far-flung, but is composed of local main nodes where everyone in a specific geographical area can primarily go to exchange ideas. Colorado node anyone? Not sure if it would even be feasible, since most "nodes" now are based more along idealistic and mentality lines (AOL, specific concern groups, slashdot, etc.) Okay, I'm done rambling. But for the record, I miss those BBS door games; I was unbeatable in The Pit and Star Traders! --
--My purpose set, my will defined. Caress the air, embrace the skies.
You're missing the point. Sure, you have more opportunities to meet different people, but you're completely ignoring the tendancy for people to seek out comfortable situations. In being able to have more control over who you meet, and when, and how, and being able to meet lots more people (no one is arguing that that isn't true) you're participating in a form of self-censorship that anthropologists and psychologists tend to point out is the mental equivilent of pigging out on chocolate.
... You become ideologically fat and lazy, and when push comes to shove, will protect your ideologies to the very end, even if it turns out that they are not suitable or compatiable with the broader scope of the human condition.
When you have too much of what you want, and are not forced into social situations where you have to deal with social situations that you are not comfortable with or enjoy, you are unable to develop the neccessary skills to deal with adversity, diametric ideologies, different thinking, etc
I always thought it was kinda funny how, when I was a child, the worse the cough medicine tasted, the better it was for you. Now adays, people expect technology to make the medicine not only work, but taste better, store your contact information, and start your car on winter mornings. In other words, just because you enjoy or interpret the technology around you as 'good for you', doesn't mean that it is. Capiche?
"Old man yells at systemd"
So?!? I'm bored with it. I thought that it would never come to this, but I'm actually bored with computers. I've lost my passion for programming, gaming, and just tinkering with computers. While my friends look at me as a computer geek still, they see that I am much easier to talk to and am invited to other events, like going to the bar with a big group. While not all people will agree, being more social in the "real world" has made me much happier.
Ok, so you say you can't become more social. Girls don't like you and the only thing you can talk about is computers, video games, or technology. Do not fear! You can change if you want to, but I must say that it is not easy and requires lots of time and effort on your part. The first step is to become involved in something that you may have never considered as fun or entertaining before. Join a book club at the library, hang out at the student union, go to a (Gasp!) sports event like a basketball or volleyball game. And don't sell yourself short by telling yourself "I won't fit in," or "They'll make fun of me." Just be yourself and attempt to make conversation. It is a long process of trial and error, but I think the payoff is worth it. Instead of sitting around having a Q3, HL, or UT LAN party 12-hour marathon on Saturday, which is still very fun, you could take that same group and go bowling or watch a volleyball game or hang out where there are many other people of the same age. And when you return, you can still play the game(s) for a few hours.
Good Luck,
Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I'm a biologist, but I also have a degree in comp stat, by the way.
I'd like to see (and I have not) numbers comparing heavy net users with the rest of the population in terms of civic involvement, do you vote, and so forth. Now, of course, heavy net use corrolates with wealth, and wealth corrolates with voting, showering on a daily basis, going to church, not being addicted to drugs, etc. etc. However, with a large enough sample to control for that, I'd like to see how heavy net users measure up.
If heavy net users vote more often and are more likely to be members of community organisations - and I don't pretend the know whether or not that is true - that pretty much kills Jon's argument. You can argue that they voted even more and were in even more community associations before the net became popular, but that is pretty weak.
I also want to see how net use affects your social life, dependent on age. To a certain extent, people in our age bracket (20-somethings; I have a university address b/c I'm a grad student. IANA Teenager!) use the net heavily because we are nerds. Not joiners, I might say. That's more true of people ten years older than I am, and less true of my little brother's generation.
Remember the UCLA 2001 Internet Census? We had a story about it back in early december; and it is worth a second read if you're interested in this topic. In particular, scroll past all the marketing bullcrap down to page 55. Buried in the middle of the document you find a lot of fascinating stuff about how people feel the Internet impacts their social lives - positively, if not overwhelmingly so.
On page 59 is the most interesting single result in the whole report. People around the age of 17 are about 33% likely to say that it is easier to meet people online than in person (compared to about 10% of older people.) That is a strange, and a little bit disturbing, trend, but it points to increasing socialisation on the net, whatever you may think of p2p and filterware.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
But then again there is always this [bbc.co.uk] recent report from the BBC, based on *actual scientific research* which suggests completely the contrary.
That is one of the exact things that got me interested in the Internet way back when. The fact that it doesn't matter where you are located
That is a neat factor, and I'm not advocating that we get RID of the global aspects of the net, but rather that there is a large void in local content. People like looking at the "big picture" when what affects them most is the "little picture" : In your country I'll bet you're most aware of National politics, despite the fact that 90% of the services that government gives you is actually local.
But if you want localization you can seek it out... For example there was a large issue around here awhile back with some bus drivers, and sure enough browse to the local news channel and they have a public forum up where people are discussing their views on the subject.
This is like the prototypical anti-socialization "Search Google!" response (and I've found that it's the anti-socials that will always rant about how great the grand worldwide net is). Debating in hit-inducing "discuss the topics we want with our censoring" on the Toronto Star website doesn't quite fill my community needs. My point is that there is something missing, and anyone who was involved with the BBS world (when long distance kept it local) can likely empathize with that. Yeah I know how to use Google.
So don't complain about it on slashdot, do something about it.
Hehe, this is almost ironically funny in a discussion about socialization and conversation. In any case, it isn't a "complaint", it's an observation: Back in the day I was a member of several BBS' and met quite a few friends who I still know today.
This will definitely get modded down but...
If you start a discussion that is solely meant for americans, the thing should be filed under america, instead of hardware or anything else.
On hot summer nights people used to sit on their front porches and chat with their neighbors. With the advent of airconditioning, people don't need to sit outside. Now, houses are built without front porches.
When your house burnt down, the community would come together and help you out. Insurance came along and now, when your house burns, some company takes care of you. With insurance covering your risks instead of the community, you no longer depend on the community for your survival.
Kids used to play outside. Everyone knew everyone else. Now with TV, video games, etc, they mostly just sit in their rooms.
It's an old trend that shows no sign of slowing.
In 1992 I started playing an online game, Air Warrior. it was the first graphical massively multiplayer game available on a commercial service (GEnie).
It's now 2002. I've been an Air Warrior for ten years. Just recently, though, Electronic Arts shut down Air Warrior for good. I've been a member of the community, an employee of the company that made Air Warrior, and a friend to litterally hundreds of people that I met on line in that game. The community and game move to different platforms, it moved to different online services, it eventually moved to the internet. But the community always went with it. Air Warrior is a touchstone that brought together thousands upon thousands of people who would probably never have met one another in meat-space.
The one thing that will endure long after the demise of Air Warrior the game is Air Warrior the community. I have friends that I met online a decade ago that I know better than my next door neighbor. Is that a bad thing? In my completely honest opinion, no. Meeting online removed *all* of the social prejudices normally exhibited in making and keeping friendships. I've been to Air Warrior conventions(held every year, religously) where I've seen investment bankers embracing car mechanics as if they were long lost brothers. In normal circles such things wouldn't happen. In an online space, though, the friendship was made because of a shared passion (Air Warrior) and by getting to know the person and not the outward appearance of the person. Those are the friendships that will endure.
I know more people online, because of this one game, that I would bend over backward for than I do in a two mile radius around my house. I'm comfortable with that. It's not where you know people that matters. It's the people you really know that matter.
I've introduced two people to the net who never used it before.
They've joined "virtual communities." They now swap quilting stories, and actual physical artifacts of the quilting hobby, with dozens of friends around the world.
Tell me how this is isolating them? Please. TV isolates you -- sits you on your couch with nobody to talk to and no reason to move. The net makes you branch out. It's reversing what the TV has done to us for decades.
People who once would have been happy to pursue their hobby in the privacy of their own home now branch out to others who share their hobby around the world. People who are too shy to go to a RL meeting of their peers will lurk on a message board and eventually get up the courage to join in the conversation.
Not every online community is filled with flames and hatred. Many are quite civilized and happily exist within their corner of the net.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
TV shows like "Seinfeld" transcend the sit at home alone experience.
Many shows do not, however. When Seinfeld was at its peak, I remember
everyone was talking about it, at least everyone that I knew.
X-Files, had the same effect.
Browsing, OTOH, rarely does this. I forward URLs to friends, but
that's via email, and rarely discussed "live". Browsing is a loner
sport, IMO.
And from 1700 to about 1941 Britain was the kingpin of world politics, during the 1800s there was one super-power who went round and pinched 1/4 of the globe. Sure its declined but not like the Roman Empire. The reason ?
Communication, societies now exist across borders and have the ability to spread their ideas and their concepts much further. The Romans lost because they had no clue about what was going on, Britain lost the empire because the empire gained concepts like Democracy and equality from Britain.
The Roman empire applies in one sense. Britain eventually listened and now the Commonwealth is one of the most powerful political forces on the planet, especially in Africa, it is the empire, but with everyone as equals.
Romans fell because of invasion at a time when weight of arms was the power, the British Empire saw the transition from arms to economy as the driver behind power.
There is a similarity between the US and the Romans however, the Romans didn't except that others should ever be treated as equals or that inclusion was a good thing. The US grew strong on the opposite of those principles, on a foundation of equality, inclusion and an objection to tyranny... unfortunately things have changed. Even so the US is not the important factor, it is its corporations. Today is a corporate not a national society.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I think Katz and Putnam are confusing a concrete example for a primary anticedent. They assume that TV and the net is the reason for social community decline. They are symptoms, not causes.
Between 1900-1930's US labor was more or less at war with US industry. The war culminated in the depression. This is when the Captains of Industry were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, not unlike what we are seeing with Enron today and it's miriad offshore partnerships to hide debt, only on an even larger scale.
Anyway, that war was fueled by some of the most backward labor practices in the western world. Ask your 90 year olds out there what "woking for a living" was like in those days if you can find any. They worked and lived like dogs and fought for every crumb they could get. This was the ingredients of organized labor before Industry got smart about it.
The depression and the following world war set the stage for an social mileu that was heavily invested in diverting attention from an organized labor force of the rank and file. And people were tired: WWII was the costliest war in the history of the world. The rank and file went into a meat grinder. They came out the other end content with less and having GI bill to help them forget the bad old days of organized labor. It was around this point that the Public Relations Industry was born. PR was initially conceived as a way for Industry to control labor from within. There's a whole history of it.
Madge: "You're soaking in it!".
Finally, here's a quote defending electronic community:
"If you still feel that physical communities must always be superior to electronically linked communities, let me ask you to ponder three words: junior high school.
Junior high school throws people together who have nothing in common besides parents who chose to locate in a particular neighborhood. Unless you're very adaptable, it is tough to find good friends. High school is more or less the same idea, but the pool of people is usually larger so it is more probable that kids with uncommon interests will find soulmates. In college, not only is the pool larger but there can be a concentration by personality type. Nerds find each other at Caltech and MIT; hippies find each other at Bard and Reed; snobs find each other at Harvard and Princeton; skiers find each other at state schools in Colorado and Vermont. When students graduate and go to work, they usually don't make as many friends. They aren't meeting as many people and the common thread of "do not want to starve in street" doesn't tie them very tightly to other workers."
Quoted From:
http://www.arsdigita.com/books/panda/community
Do you seriously think that the average peasant from 300 years ago cared about gaining as much money/material as possible over music?
I would assume that three hundred years ago, the average peasant would do anything in his/her power to gain as much wealth as possible in order to better his or her life and to elevate it above abject poverty. Art back then, as I see it, was mostly an outlet for expression during the few periods of free time one had.
Our technology is allowing us to be more anti-social than ever.
I disagree, because I don't consider face-to-face interactivity to be the only valid form of socializing. I was a very quiet and withdrawn kid in school. I kept to myself and I didn't bother getting involved with the various groups and cliques on campus. I had three or four very good friends and the rest were aquaintences. I did not grow up stunted, or maladjusted, or socially inept. I can handle idle chit-chat with strangers as easily as discussing politics with my father. I just choose not to socialize as often as everyone else apparently felt compelled to.
These days, I am still essentially the same. I'd rather stay home and read or browse the Net and post in online forums than go out to a party. My audience is better-suited this way. I can express myself the way I prefer, at my leisure, and in whatever manner I choose. I help moderate an anime forum (down for upgrades at the moment) and have discussed hundreds of topics, issues, and events with thousands of people in over a year's time. I would never have gotten that exposure or interaction without the reach of technology and the Net. The discussions I have had are, in my opinion, far more detailed, interesting, and thought-provoking than the mundane "let's spit out a few bland clichès and sound cool" discussions I find myself in while out in the real world. Discussions backed up with credible references, multiple global opinions, and varying insight. It is my opinion that the kinds of people willing to seriously take the time to sit down and verbally knock around an issue are few and far between. That translates into a lot of legwork on my (and his/her) part, which means time wasted while I could be interacting with someone.
Technology just makes that process of finding those people you like to talk to (who you'd be looking for and filtering for anyway in the real world) more efficient. For example, I seriously doubt that I'd ever have a discussion like this one with someone face-to-face and be able to articulate my point like this. I'd get a few sentances in edgewise, and then it'd be the other person's "turn." Our words are set in stone for future reference and we can fully flesh out our thoughts in one communication without having to worry about the physical constraints of face-to-face interaction.
As for the life expectancy thing, thats you're value, bub. It's another example of technology empowering us to a degree that damages social patters (in this case, people who die of old age are doing so alone at a nursing home, in greater numbers than ever before. Good thing we can keep ourselves alive for so long!)
The elderly who are dying of old age are probably damn grateful to have lived to see their kids grow up to raise children of their own, and in the most heartening situations, see those children get married and have children. The elderly may suffer disproportionately as they get older, but that's a consequence of their actions they are fully aware of. Would they choose to die at 40? Would they choose to die at 35? I think not. Technology has given us the ability to live longer to enjoy the fruits of our labor and to enjoy the families and friends we have over a longer period of time.
Damaging social patterns? You spoke earlier about the verbal tradition of story-telling. You must be forgetting that the elderly have a wealth of advice, wisdom, and tips to tell the people they know. The older they get, the more they accumulate. Certainly, after a point, their mental capacities fade, but that is no reason to imply that we should prefer an early death to a longer life.
"All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics". - Norman Douglas
I hear a lot of people describing Slashdot as a community, a term that would to me suggest an group of individuals who know one another on a personal basis and regularly communicate in a structured environment. Truly, how many of you out there actually know other posters as friends or even associates? If you are like me the people here are just a collection of strangers that I can only identify based upon their verbal ability and interest in a specific topic. I would be interested if anyone else has a different take on the /. experience, but to me it is just a source for the opinions of strangers, albeit perhaps largely well educated and articulate ones. Do any of you out there regard other posters as friends? Would you interact with them socially or in any other context as this forum?
-K