Internet: Use with Caution

The Internet is a very useful modern tool. It broadens horizons, shortens distances, educates, informs and supplies people with all kinds of experiences. However, the over-use of computers is a new social problem. The lack of human contact creates a population of depressive and lonesome individuals. Like most things, the Internet has a bright and a dark side. It all depends on the user. Computers are extremely positive when used properly and with moderation.

The Internet shrunk the world connecting people from one side to the other of the globe. One of the troubles of being an immigrant is that most of my family lives in another country. It is very hard to live abroad. I do not have immediate family or childhood friends around to support me. My computer, with a web cam and a built-in microphone, enables me to speak and see my parents as if we are sitting across the table from each another. Of course, I miss hugging my parents and friends but seeing them helps a lot with the feelings of loneliness. It made crossing an ocean feel like crossing the street.

Maybe because is so easy to “connect” online, people are refrain from doing it in person. Clifford Stoll in Isolated by the Internet claims that the Internet isolates and dehumanizes frequent users. Sherry Turkle in Who Am We encountered people like Stewart that created a “living environment suitable to his ideal self” in a fantasy Internet game called Multi-User Dungeons or MUD (Turkle, 680). Stewart’s loneliness and dependency on his artificial life confirms Stoll’s theory. However, Turkle also met people like Case, a married man that is currently playing a woman in a MUD. Case’s involvement with the character is bringing him some life lessons he would not have otherwise (Turkle, 683). Turkle also met Zoe that “credits MUDs with enabling her to reach a state of mind where she is better able to speak up for herself in her marriage.”(Turkle, 684) Zoe is playing a man on a MUD and benefiting from it. She is learning how to not feel “like a bitch” whenever she needs to be more aggressive and display authority.

Stoll claims that people who use the Internet lose valuable social skills. In Turkle research, she found out that it is not always the case. Stewart is an extreme case of withdraws from real life. He is twenty-three years old and the only girlfriend he has ever had was on a MUD. He claims being awkward around woman in real situations and this is an ability that he did not developed or lost. In the other hand, Case and Zoe are developing skills through life experiences they would never have if it were not for the MUDs. In short, Stoll’s arguments are not totally right but cannot be dismissed either.

Everything in excess is prejudicial. I never hear anyone talk badly about books. On the contrary, people usually say great things about those who like to read a lot. Yet, excessive reading could have been used to avoid real life in the days before TV and Internet. Plus, when a person reads a novel, just like in MUDs, he or she starts living vicariously through the characters. A novel book that I really enjoyed was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I became so involved with the lives of the characters that I dreaded the end of the book. I missed Elizabeth, Jane and all other characters for weeks! Of course, the Internet took it to the next level. MUDs provide the possibility to create your own persona, situations and “interact” with other people. The moderate use of life simulation provided by the Internet could be a constructive exercise of creativity. I agree that the disproportionate reliance on the Internet is a problem but I do not believe that the Internet is “the problem.”

Mohandas Gandhi said, “Commonsense is the realized sense of proportion.” Even the most essential things in excess could be harmful. The Internet is wonderful. It has an unlimited amount of properties to use, people to “meet,” and information to research. So, it is easy to exaggerate and stay in front of the screen longer than what would be considered healthy. According to Stoll, psychologists started to evaluate the obsessive use of Internet as an addiction like alcoholism. Maybe there will be an epidemic of loneliness in the world. The cure for that needs to be taught by parents and in school: commonsense.