Slashdot Mirror
Internet Not the Social Hinder it Was
imjustatomato writes "A 1998 study showed that the Internet causes declines in social relationships and isolation, similarly to how television causes social disengagement and bad moods. This is the 'Internet Paradox' because while the internet is heavily used for communication, it makes people lonelier. However, a more recent study shows that now the internet has a positive effect on social and psychological well-being. This is even more so for those who have more social support and are extroverted in nature. Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area."
I find the bit about less local interest interesting as I know that I had little desire to leave Tennessee until I began surfing the internet regularly, meeting people from other places and reading about them on online news sites. Indeed, the first time I truly wanted to leave my state came when I 'dated' a girl online. . . and it's thanks to internet research that I ended up here at Boston U. Naturally curious person enabled by the net, or innocent Southern boy corrupted by the tubes'o'satan?
[Terribly witty statement]
I was painfully shy as a teenager. Was terrified of approaching people in general to talk to them and would avoid most social situations at all costs - I guess I had what psychologists would call a social anxiety disorder. I couldn't even post in an internet forum without the fear of humiliation.
Yet it was the internet where I dared post before I ever tried to contribute in such a way in a real life situations. The more I interacted online, the more comfortable (and confident) I felt doing the same in reallife to the point where I can approach strangers and start conversation.
*Shrugs* Maybe it was the internet or just getting older, as I realize this process happens to a lot of people who were extremely shy/self-conscious as teenagers. But there is no comparing the internet to TV, the TV is a passive medium, the internet is interactive. The only danger I see is when people start substituting the internet for real life.
Quite the opposite. You can learn a great deal from staring at that "box" in your room. Those people at the City Hall (or bar, or restaurant, or whatever fictional place people need to "get outside and go to") wouldn't be able to tell you about the current situation on definition of planets, or the state of affairs in Israel/Lebanon.
Those people are too busy superficially socializing and killing brain cells to drown out the idea that there's something more to life than what other people's preconceived notions are.
Then again, staring at this box has taught me one extremely valuable lesson - people will say anything, even if it is meaningless, in order to get a first post (and the inevitable mod points following it).