Welcome to The Age of the Web Hermit

tyroneking writes "Phil Hartup on bit-tech.net has captured the Zeitgeist of the web-aware generation: The Age of the Web Hermit describes how some lucky souls can live their lives, earn money, buy necessities and even find love on the Internet. 'Is there anything that we really need good old fashioned Real Life for any more?'; not me!"

Comments

Re:Maybe I'm there...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Speaking as an abstainer in a country where socializing equates to "getting very, very drunk", I can safely say that reading Slashdot trumps socializing every single time.

Re:Shut-ins

[truthsearch]

For those who would be shut-ins anyway this bundle of tubes provides a way to socialize. People need to interact, but they're always finding new ways to do it online: /. threads, forums, blogs and blog comments, chat rooms, Second Life, etc. There's a problem when a person who would otherwise be out socializing becomes a shut-in. But for those who are more comfortable as shut-ins there are new ways to socialize.

Re:Shut-ins

[misanthrope101]

Not everyone is sociable, or wants to be. It isn't a matter of being "cool," but just one of needing solitude, or perhaps of finding it preferable to the alternative. I doubt that one can really understand people by assuming they're all alike. My point is that, to you, reclusivity may seem like prison, but to me, gregariousness seems shallow. How much inane chitchat do you really need in your life? Are you incapable of sitting quietly with your own thoughts? Many people are, it seems. But instead of realizing that they lack the inner resources of solitary people, they leap to the conclusion that everyone who isn't exactly like them is maladjusted and unhealthy. How comforting it must be to pity everyone who isn't like you. There is nothing wrong with solitude, but there is something wrong with being unable to be alone. If you couldn't fathom going a week without speaking to anyone, that just means you're shallow. Given a choice between an evening if vapid small-talk and an evening at home reading William Blake, I'll take the book. One of these actually makes me feel and think, while the other is just a penalty I have to occasionally pay so people like you won't start spreading the rumor that I'm mentally deranged so similar crap.

Yes, there are mentally unwell people who happen to be loners. That doesn't mean they typify the class.

parenthood, work, suburbia

[bcrowell]

College and grad school were great for socializing in person. There were people all around me who were interested in intellectual things, and it was even pretty easy to find people who were interested in the same intellectual things I was interested in. We were at the same stage in our lives, and although it seemed like we were working our butts off in school, the truth was that we had a lot of free time, because we didn't have kids, or pets, or lawns to mow.

The real world is a whole different deal. Nothing against my neighbors, they're nice people and I enjoy shooting the breeze with them now and then, but we just have nothing in common. Parenthood, work, and living in suburbia just aren't very conducive to making contact with people who care about books, or jazz, or free information.

Internet relationships tend to be shallow and temporary, but if I didn't have e-mail, usenet, and (I admit) slashdot, my opportunities to have any kind of an intellectual life outside my own head would be extremely limited.

My family and I just spent three weeks in Greece and England, and it was an amazing contrast with the kind of alienating suburban environment I live in here in the U.S. In Athens, extended families go out together for dinner in sidewalk cafes at 10 in the evening. In little farming villages in Greece, the older men hang out in coffee shops and talk. In England, people hang out and talk in pubs. The U.S. is just pathetic, especially where I live (Orange County, CA), in terms of giving people spaces where they can interact with the rest of society. Everybody just drives places in their air-conditioned SUV's. Maybe shopping malls are the closest equivalent we have, but I just don't enjoy them as places to hang out, people-watch, or run into friends.

Got over hermit phase by getting on the ballot.

[bmasel]

Since June 1 I've been collectinfg the signatures necessary to Get on the Ballot as a candidate for the United States Senate, challengeing the clueless incumbent Herb Kohl in the Democratic Primary.

As of today, it's official, my 2198 signatures are sufficient.