Rant: Internet

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A friendship may be superficial , casual , situational or deep and lasting . Life is the art of dreaming sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

I have thought recently about online activities and how they change over time, with one thing leading to another in a headlong rush to encompass it all and I have spread myself thinly across the electronic world. I now see how we ourselves change as a result of those activities as we let the flow of electrons to our monitor affect emotions we thought we were immune to or at least have contained. I consider it quite fortunate that I am not obsessed about the internet as some might. But in saying that I am probably obsessed to some degree since the measurement could be relative compared to non-users.

Frightening are the stories such as the story of the husband who no longer is attentive to his wife and family because he claims that the stress from his job can only be released through playing violent video games. In August 2005, a 28-year-old South Korean man died after playing the game Starcraft at an Internet café for 50 hours straight. The man had apparently not slept properly and had eaten very little in that time. While no autopsy was performed, he was believed to have died from heart failure due to exhaustion. A 13-year-old Chinese boy died falling from a building. The boy was allegedly re-enacting a scene from the game warcraft. In Nevada, a couple were arrested after they ignored their two toddlers to the point of neglect due to their gaming addiction.
We hear of cyber dating online affairs ruining couples and people addicted to online gambling and e-bay auctions. The internet is great with having all that knowledge at your fingers and its great in that I can often work from home. It's wonderful allowing us communications but do we use it so much that it's become a part of our lives and so ingrained that it has become a part we can't do without? How much meaning do we allow people on the net (netizens) into our lives, our thoughts and our feelings. At what cost to real life does the drawback of access to this world create?

How often do you find that you stay on-line longer than you intended?
How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner?
How often do you form new relationships with fellow on-line users?
How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend on-line?
How often do you check your e-mail before something else that you need to do?
How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?
How often do you become defensive or secretive when anyone asks you what you do on-line?
How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go on-line again?
How often do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty, and joyless?
How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are on-line?
How often do you lose sleep due to late-night log-ins?
How often do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being on-line?
How often do you find yourself saying "just a few more minutes" when on-line?
How often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend on-line and fail?
How often do you try to hide how long you've been on-line?

If you can honestly answer as "Yes" or "often" to a couple of those questions then you have at best, the beginning of a problem and at worst, a mental obsession on par with drug addiction. I answered these questions to myself and it seems that I have a problem. Of course I tried to justify to myself that I work from the computer a lot and also that with my partner being away I use the computer more than I would if she was here because I am alone in my apartment. But I also can see that I'm trying to use those answers to somehow excuse myself from the inevitable judgmental conclusion of "why" I use it so often.

In an attempt to erase my internet footprints I have closed down a lot of sites of which I was a member. I shall remain on the one forum that I visit and here on this blog and my other blog which has no connection to this one.
I shall also not bother with the chat-rooms anymore because I feel that they are no longer all that they were. At least they don't hold the same appeal to me as they once did. Several years ago I thought that they were fun and seemingly endlessly filled with fun people. Laughter and a comfortable easy feeling pervaded the chat room atmosphere almost everytime I visited. But now more often they are filled with superficial people and "hot_4u" and "big_man_on_cam" seekers of gratification. There are people with so many lies that it's become hard to see the real person underneath them. People who crave audiences or need to talk about issues that says they really need a therapist rather than on-line company and people who have become character actors of their own created representations or people simply seeking entourages to prop up their disabled egos. It takes a long time and great patience to find the good, decent and honest people in those places. I guess I just hung out for a long time in the wrong ones!

If you stop and think about that for a moment then if you decide that these are the kind of people that fill your social world and knowing that we are judged by the company we keep, then what are we doing with them? Why do we mutilate and wound ourselves by being with them? I'm trying to avoid an elitism tag here and if such environment holds some appeal or amuses you then jump right in. I'm certainly not going to judge you or your reasons. Go enjoy it.
Society both real and the net are composed of many elements and I think if we are not comfortable in one, we should seek a more suitable environment or group to be with.
There are many varied and different people out there and in here and this rant can be about finding yourself and finding those you are comfortable with just as much as about how long we spend connected to the great world wide.

Time to close My-Space and Multiply and Face-book and anything you don't need or have simply outgrown. Time to notice that life in other places and outside of the monitor exists and simply awaits your participation.

My girlfriend doesn't like the computer much and checks it for mail once every three days or so if she isn't busy. Hey if she's home I'd rather be with her out doing something or having fun or if we stay in, cuddled up watching a DVD or anything together.

So if you took just a one week vacation from the net, what would you do?

...and talking of netizens. A quick check to see where my top 20 readers come from reveals:


General area Left to right:
California, Texas, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Montreal, South England, London, Cataluna-Spain***, Germany, Rome-Italy, Tanzania, Malaysia, Hong Hong, Jiangxi, Beijing,Tianjin, Itoman-Okinawa, Okazi-Achi, Tokyo and Yokohama.

Thank you all for visiting and reading.
.

***=my internet stalker.