Too many articles and opinions have been doing the rounds about how online social networking is killing real life relationships.
Sure, people are spending a lot of time scrapping each other or hanging-out on gtalk, but that's hardly enough reason to bad-mouth the net as a 'social-life killer'.
With e-networking I can have a word with Bill Gates if I like, so what if I haven't a clue about my neighbour.
How can this kill your social skills when all it's doing is giving wings to those who never had any? It's letting me say hello and wish people on their birthdays when otherwise I probably wouldn't bother.
Yes MMOGs and heavy gaming is killing people's ability to interact and relate with other human beings. But that's hardly digital's fault. Isn't it the same with any form of addiction? Doesn't it consume you, especially if it's an addiction that only involves the individual and not the entire community.
In fact, even if people are becoming more and more withdrawn, they are finding relationships in a different dimension. Why, only some time back a woman tried to attempt suicide and was saved by a joint effort by her online group to locate her.
With busy-bee lives, old-world socializing is dying. No need to see red. Change is inevitable.
Online Social networking isn't all that bad.
God knows, without it I'd be living in my head and talking to myself!
Friday, June 20, 2008
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Might not have been a bad thing. Talking to oneself was once called introspection, something that having distractions on tap makes more difficult. Social networking expands breadth and reach, but might not encourage depth. Still, I'm not one to criticize. The internet, as all things built by well meaning engineers, is a tool. Good or bad is really upto the maturity of the user.
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