WHAT WILL PEOPLE LOSS?

Yuan Sun
English 102E
Assignment #2
06/10/2010

When personal computer became popular, internet has been familiar with most of people, especially for the young generation. As Clifford Stoll said at the beginning of the article “Isolated by the Internet”—“For all my grinching about the soul-deadening effects of the Internet, most Internet users speak positively about it.” (648) Internet is popular now. I think to individual, through internet, people can get a large numbers of information, database and gain their knowledge in any aspects they want; make friends and often connect with them online. At school, teachers can use internet quickly to find more resources; link with online video to make the course more interesting. People who work in a company can use computer to store and analysis data; doing market research through internet.

However, this is just an obvious part of internet. Every coin has two sides. Internet is also the same with coin. At the beginning, people may all thought that internet is amazing and it must be benefit for the development of our society. But disadvantages just hide behind the “beautiful appearance”. With the passage of time, people will find the different side of internet. “According to Carnegie Mellon University psychologists Robert Kraut and Vicki Lundmark, there are serious negative long-term social effects, ranging from depression to loneliness” (684). Maybe many years ago if people who mentioned this opinion will not be accepted, but now it is more and more obvious and becoming a common phenomenon.

Many people fell that use internet to connect with others is very convenient. E-mail, charting room, MSN, OICQ, facebook all these things are a tool for communication. They instead of face-to-face communication and phones gradually. People can make friends through them, and all the people who connected with internet may be treat as in a society. But this world is virtual; in fact, they all get away from the real world. “Kraut and Lundmark concluded that ‘greater use of the Internet was associated with small, but statistically significant declines in social involvement as measured by communication within the family and the size of people’s local social networks, and with increases in loneliness, and depression” (650). I have heard people say that this generation is a lonely generation. The “digital generation” live with internet, attracted by internet and addicted to it. It makes them lose of social skill. In the virtual world, they can talk with people confident, but in the real world , they becomes shy and nervous. Meanwhile, always rely on internet, especially young people, they spend less time with their families. If the time is long, they will become lonely, doesn't know how to communicate with parents and feel lack of love. I agree with Clifford Stoll, internet is really can make people loneliness and depression. Everyone should think of it carefully and control themselves.

In Sherry Turkle’s article “Who Am We”, she mentions that today “real life” is quickly becoming “just one more window” (687). Because on the internet, a person can play or even really think himself are many different persons. “The life practice of windows is that of a decentered self that exists in many worlds, that exists in many worlds, that plays many roles at the same time” (677). I agree with Turkle, nowadays people who addicted to internet is totally cannot be aware of what is real world and who the person self is. In their eyes, real life is become “windows”, they can own many different “real life”. They all get lost in the virtual worlds. They don’t know who is behind the screen or we can say that they don’t care. All of them just want to play a perfect self in this virtual world.

Why people don’t use their time which is spent in the virtual world to consider about who I am? They all have to face real life, have to study and work. When they get out from the virtual world and face real world every day, they must feel a huge loss. It is really bad for a person, so wake up from the virtual is an emergency. The opportunity cost for the unreal happiness which they owned from the virtual world is not only their time, even their real precious characteristics.