Sunday afternoon- some food for thought, again (from our very irregular series), this time on Internet and social networking. Funnily enough, both articles have the same author, William Deresiewicz.
In “The End of Solitude”, he explores the effects that Internet connectivity and the use of social media have on young people’s ability to be alone, to indulge in solitude and take advantage of this state of mind in order to develop their inner self.
So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. (…) A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive — though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point. The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many Google hits does my name generate? (…) Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone.
Although he is right in pointing out some of the negative aspects of Internet dependency, he does miss one of the main aspects that make people want to stay connected: the web offers an enormous range of opportunities for our professional as well as our personal lives, from maintaining friendships or professional contacts to social activism, issue networking, connected learning and information sharing… The key to success, however, is striking the right balance between real life and online life. And this is, for many, also the biggest challenge. George Siemens at elearnspace points in the same direction:
The concept of how the self relates to the crowd and how much time we allot for reflecting and creative thinking is important. I see that as related more to personal habits than technology.
Sunday afternoon- some food for thought, again (from our very irregular series), this time on Internet and social networking. Funnily enough, both articles have the same author, William Deresiewicz.
In "The End of Solitude", he explores the effects that Internet connectivity and the use of social media have on young people's ability to be alone, to indulge in solitude and take advantage of this state of mind in order to develop their inner self.
So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. (...) A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive — though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point. The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many Google hits does my name generate? (...) Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone.
Although he is right in pointing out some of the negative aspects of Internet dependency, he does miss one of the main aspects that make people want to stay connected: the web offers an enormous range of opportunities for our professional as well as our personal lives, from maintaining friendships or professional contacts to social activism, issue networking, connected learning and information sharing... The key to success, however, is striking the right balance between real life and online life. And this is, for many, also the biggest challenge. George Siemens at elearnspace points in the same direction:
The concept of how the self relates to the crowd and how much time we allot for reflecting and creative thinking is important. I see that as related more to personal habits than technology.
