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Internet to Blame for Lack of Close Friends
Anonymous Coward writes "Duke and University of Arizona researchers are citing the Internet as one of the main contributing factors to a shrinking of social networks among Americans. People say they have fewer people they can talk to about important stuff, even if they are talking to lots more people from all over the place about unimportant stuff online."
That maybe people use the Internet because they don't have any friends?
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Maybe the article just got it wrong and the paper actually makes valid points, but the assertion that comparing data from 1985 and 2004 can tell us anything about the Internet's effect on socialization is absurd. That data and those time periods can't even show a correlation, much less causation. Perhaps if they had studied data from 1985 to2004 and related it to the amount of internet access for those time periods (or better yet, actually studied differences between those with internet access and those without) then there would be a story. Otherwise, this is just an absurd claim completely unsubtantiated by any facts (much less my own personal experience).
Let's put the blame where it belongs: I have less close friends because I spend too much time on the internet. It's not like the internet's fault, it's mine for taking the easy option.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
I find that the hollowness of American social life is not only due to the Internet, but to a growing American utilitarianism and sense of entitlement that stretches into personal relationships.
Friends and would-be lovers alike are more and more forming and maintaining friendships on the basis of "What is this person doing for me right now?"
If someone isn't making them a profit, or is (gasp) taking their time or effort without a mechanically measurable payoff of some kind, people are only too ready these days to "kick them to the curb" and look for friends who are profitable or represent a measurable gain of some kind, whether in prestige or job prospects or exclusive memberships or exploitable expertise/skills.
This mentality of "everything has a price and can be calculated as a cost-benefit" has already ruled American material life for years and led to a kind of spiritual bankruptcy that leads to cults, sappy new-ageism, under/overeducation, and other strange social pathologies and now it is polluting our social lives as well.
When everyone is busy being a self-interested climber in their relationships, is is any wonder that nobody seems to be able to find non-selfish-climber friends? When everyone is busy sensing that they are entitled to their opinion, their time, their wishes, their preferences without the need for discussion or compromise, is it any wonder that people suddenly find that no-one is willing to compromise or have patience with them?
It gets to the point that you socialize on the Internet merely because the stakes are lower. You're less likely to get screwed or hurt or exploited and at the same time you can justify the time expenditure to others because "spending time online" appeals more to the protestant ethic of endless "useful" labor than does a phrase like "hanging out with some friends at the bar."
People are working all the time, their social relations have now become part of work too, calculated like work, and so they are finding that relationships feel like work and are subject to all of the risks and pitfalls that occur in the workplace.
The solutions? Stop bringing work home, set aside time to be "home," don't try to measure what other people are doing for you, only what you are doing for other people, and try not to take it personally when people "kick you to the curb" for not being productive enough or razz you for being a "slacker" and not leaving work at 8:30 PM to bring it home and pound on it with some climber friends from the office until 1:30 AM while calling it a "social life."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I use the internet as a crutch for my non-existant social life. And after all these years it's finally wearing me down.
Think back to a time before Google. When you watched a movie and thought the actor looked familiar, but didn't know who it was. You called a friend, told them to tune in, and they told you who it was. Usually this would prompt a conversation and maybe some plans to hang out. Now, the instinct is to look it up online. No social interaction necessary. Instant gratification.
Enter MySpace. Now if you want to know what your friends are doing, you just look at your event invites. If you don't want to go, there's no need to make excuses over the phone. Just say you forgot to look. You don't have the benefit of that friend pulling your leg telling you it just might be fun. It's easy to miss out on things this way. But it's SO much less of a hassle, right?
The flow of information has gone from push to pull. You can now look up only what you want to see and ignore everything else. Even searches about heated topics like war, religion, etc - the result of your search depends on how you perform it. People aren't often challenged by new and opposing information. They have enough online friends that share their opinions. When you talk to people in the real world about the same subjects, you are getting a somewhat random mix of opinions. You risk having to defend your view and even having to change it. Online friends are easier to deal with because you've pre-screened them based on their interests.
Look at radio. It used to be that we were given a set of songs that were repeated over and over until we liked them or tuned out. The only way to hear new music was to go - gasp - OUT to a bar or club. Now we can download just the songs we want, or check Pandora for recommendations.
My point is that people are lazy. It's natural to look for the path of least resistance. Often times, the internet is that path. The internet only got as popular as it did because of this. It's not a chicken-egg thing. People created the internet. We only have ourselves to blame for the isolation. We asked for it.
Is it really such a bad thing? We look back fondly on a time before the internet. We think that time was wonderful because it no longer exists. We remember study groups at the library and honestly think they are better than independent research online. But we forget how interaction with others often slows down our individual progress. You're only as strong as the weakest link. If the collective knowledge of your own pool of friends is all you had, would you know as much as you know now? Or is it that we are starting to believe that knowledge isn't all it's cracked up to be? What can you do with it when you are all alone?
Maybe it is better for people to help each other, to strengthen the weakest link instead of tossing him overboard as dead weight. Sure, that's better for society. But not for the individual. What we are seeing now is the struggle between the two. At the moment the individual is the one who is winning out, and that is why Americans are perceived as shallow and selfish.
Another factor to consider in this is fear. The news on TV is quite skilled at engendering a free-floating dread in the populace. Look at how kids get raised these days: kept indoors all the time, watched over like hawks, and any neighbor that so much as says hi to the kid is immediately suspected of wanting to kidnap, rape, and murder the kid. All because the TV news implies every night that it's happening everywhere!
It used to be that parents let their kids go out and actually ROAM the neighborhood. I remember twenty-plus years ago, I'd come in for lunch, then go back outside and run around with my friends and sometimes my parents wouldn't see me until dinnertime, or even later. I look around the neighborhood where I live today, and only the latino kids get that sort of free rein anymore. I guess the Spanish channel's news is less horrifying. I know it all seems to have started about the early-to-mid 80's, with the fake scares about razors in apples on Halloween (a story pushed by crazy anti-halloween loons, who were afraid that Satan was coming for their children; a story they pushed right onto the front pages) and the rise of the aforementioned hysteria about the pedophiles in the woodwork.
As the kids of that age have grown up, it's not surprising they've got a smaller circle of friends, and hey, that all started about the time the internet did!
I firmly believe that the greatest problem in the world today (and in the United States most of all) is fear. It's the stark terror, deep inside, that causes people to argue that placing sensible restrictions on possible abuse of government power is going to cause crazed muslamoid islamobogeymen to kill people by the millions; it's what lies behind both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict; it's what fuels the repressive governments in North Korea and Iran; in a thousand ways, in a thousand parts of the world, it's fear that destroys us.
- mantar
I could never relate to most locals, really. The best friends I have are those I've met online. A few have moved nearby since and I see them often in real-life.
Therein lies the rub.
Leaving aside all the things that friends do for you that require physical presence (e.g. visit you in the hospital after the car accident, feed your pet iguana while you're on vacation), it means that more than ever, birds of a feather flock together.
Friendship used to be 50% affinity and 50% propinquity. People used to have some friends who were mostly affinity (my friends I see at the monthly meeting of the the local chapter of the Christian Republican Golfers )and some friends mostly by propinquity (my next door neighbor, who's a lesbian Democrat labor activist and used her trusty swiss army knife to get my broken down car started when I was running late for the big job interview).
Being friends with people who you couldn't relate to beforehand broadens your mind in the way that mere access to the wealth of information the Internet provides can't. It's all too easy to be like a person in a exotic foreign bazaar who heads right to the McDonald's for a Big Mac. Pretty soon your circle of friends contracts until you and your asscoiates in the Virtual Jihadist club reinforce each other in a very peculiar and narrow minded world view. You no longer have people who have both conservative Christian Republicans for friends and liberal gay Democrats. We stick to our golf buddies or fellow lesbian separatists.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.