Relationships, Connecting, and the Significance of the Internet
The online world is big network in which we can communicate easily across vast distances in real time. Many consider it to be one of the greatest tools of all time like the light bulb or refrigerator but the internet breaks away from those inventions. The internet has become this world we can live in through where we share and store information with audio, visuals, and emotions. It has become something so massive in the way we are able to immerse ourselves that it has become another world. This can be somewhat of a problem when it comes to real life relationships.
“If two people are supposed to be in a relationship but one spends much more time in a synthetic world than the other then there is a de facto distance” – ( Castronova p 256)
The internet can connect people but at the same time disconnect. I am an avid internet user, texter, gamer, I immerse myself in technology. I don’t always have time for it but I spread it out in small increments because I believe the internet has interesting ways for people to connect actively with other real people. However I do know people who religiously live within the internet and it creates rift in relationships they have. Someone hundreds of miles away can be more connected to me because of the internet although I may not have seen them for years versus a friend who lives a dorm room away and lives behind their device for weeks. You would think that with such close proximity there would be this greater connection between us but it is hard to communicate when the internet allows you to escape into any world you can have imagine in some ways a better world that is personalized. So this can create an issue. This great invention used to bring us together has also been used for people to escape from reality into a much more enjoyable place of their choosing. Although this isn’t great, this is real. Why can’t we connect well? For a long time internet was a part of our life just a tool but now it’s almost its own entity and we abused it for so long and relied on it that each other generation less and less people know how to truly interact with one another so the range of communication went from slim, wide, and now only individuals we care for with no one that is considered a scrap connection. This is significant because its real, it matters, and we need to manage it better before years from now it becomes the only form of connecting.
This video is of comedian Aziz Ansari telling a story about texting his friends and how troublesome it can be.
Self and Society Fall 2013 
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