Do you feel alienated by the Internet?
I don't. I feel connected, empowered and engaged.A common misconception for people who don't use the Internet as a matter of course is that it is alienating. I know people in my life who don't use or know what Google is. These people must surely feel as if the Internet will alienate them if they make us of it "too much".I feel the opposite these days. After three long years of full integration with Internet and its tools as a resource and part of my life I am happy to report that I feel alive when I use "cyberspace".What kind of a word is that anyways? Cyberspace? Who coined that term?This is what Wikipedia has to say:
Origins of the termThe word "cyberspace" (from cybernetics and space) was coined by science fiction novelist and seminal cyberpunk author William Gibson in his 1982 story "Burning Chrome" and popularized by his 1984 novel Neuromancer.[1] The portion of Neuromancer cited in this respect is usually the following: Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding, (69).Gibson later commented on the origin of the term in the 1996 documentary No Maps for These Territories: All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.
"A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions" - that is definitely not the Internet that I make use of. I am involved in a real world that assumes the parameters of what is socially accepted as the "real world". In fact, I find it hard to differentiate between waking up, driving to work, sitting at my desk and writing a story and waking up, switching on my Mac and writing a blog post. There is inherently no difference and thus I do not feel isolated.Sure I do both of the above, work at a desk and blog, but the two are both a part of my real existence.The Internet is not filled with fake relationships and sexual predators posing as young men to get in to bed with a young girl. Yes, there are those cases, but that is not what the Internet is anymore. The Internet is more, is everything and nothing to some.As you can see, I don't feel isolated or alienated but thrilled and revived by the Internet. Do you feel alienated?
