As I mentioned above, I am currently enrolled in COML (that stands for Communication & Leadership) 509, a Master’s-level class at Gonzaga University. For this class, we are required to write three short reflective papers (approximately 2-3 pages) on various aspects of computer-mediated communication, or CMC. To spice things up, our forward-thinking teacher (big shout out to Assistant Professor Nobuya Inagaki) has given us the option to either write these papers in a traditional format or post them to a blog. For me, this was a no-brainer! Not only will I be able to avoid some of the annoying nuances of a more formal paper, but it also makes sharing my genius with the “cyberverse” as easy as posting a link.
You’re welcome.
Now that that’s out of the way, let us continue on to the meat of this blog post. During the discussion portion of this class, we were given a list of questions to consider. In this post, I would like to discuss just one of these questions. Now I say “discuss” as opposed to “answer” because the blog format affords every reader the opportunity to contribute to the conversation. I chose this particular question because, in a class designed to study the implications of CMC, I believe it is one of the most important questions we can discuss. The topic we will be discussing is:
Has the internet contributed to the construction of a global village or to the destruction of community?
Oooooh…exciting! Let us begin.
As a precursor to the discussion, I think it’s important that we define “community.” Here are the first three definitions according to dictionary.com
1. A social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage..
2. A locality inhabited by such a group.
3. A social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics
or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually prec. by the ): the business community; the community of scholars
For our purposes, each definition can work. Definition 3 may seem to fit the best since it eliminates the factor of a shared locality. However, when we consider that the internet is as much a locality for information and socialization as a library or local bar would be, the first two definitions make sense as well.
Now that we have defined “community,” we are one step closer to determining the impact the internet has had on it. Neil Postman, a popular media theorist and cultural critic once (or maybe more times) said, “Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose” (Source cite). So what have been the “unforeseen consequences” of the internet? Who wins with the internet? Who loses?
I know some who would claim that the internet and other forms of CMC are simply meant to be extensions of face-to-face communication. In fact, the concept of the internet was originally created by the Defense Department as a way to communicate in the event of a nuclear war, an event that would make face-to-face communication impossible in many situations.
Internet aside, there is little question that, up until the advent of communication technologies such as the printing press and telegraph, the ability to communicate face-to-face formed the basis for most “villages” or communities. If not already accomplished by older technologies, the internet has completely obliterated the need for two people to be face-to-face in order to communicate. Additionally, it would seem that the internet has significantly increased our ability to connect with people who share common characteristics or interests: two factors necessary to form community according to our definition.
So with all of this in mind, it seems safe to claim that the internet has indeed helped construct a sort of global village. While not physical locations, sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Match.com and eHarmony have definitely become gathering places for millions of people all around the world, making them mega virtual villages in their own rights. Facebook alone operates in approximately 70 translations for its more than 500,000 users. Did I mention that people spend more than 700 billion minutes PER MONTH on Facebook? If I did my math right, that’s a combined 1.3 million years spent on Facebook every month. Now Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the world’s largest skyscraper, Burj Khalifa2, was built in approximately 22 million man-hours. If we took the “man-hours” spent on Facebook each day and used them to build skyscrapers, we would have 17 by close of business. In my book, that classifies as a small-to-medium sized village.
So when it comes to the internet, Neil Postman was right. Created to allow for communication after a nuclear holocaust, the unforeseen consequence of the internet is the ability to easily waste (in this grad student’s opinion) a fairly significant amount of time. Who wins in this scenario? Well obviously Facebook is doing pretty well. Who loses? We’ll start to answer this…right now.
We can safely assume that the internet has helped construct a global village. However, has this construction of a global village contributed to the overall destruction of community? Since this is only supposed to be a three page reflective paper and not a 40-page research project, I’m going to keep things somewhat simple. My answer: it depends.
Not everyone uses the internet the same way. For some (and most likely a shrinking minority), the internet is simply a tool, another resource they can use to enhance their life. For others, however, the internet has become almost necessary for their survival. Online banking, shopping, scheduling, troubleshooting and socializing can all be done online. To steal a recent status message from one of my friends, who will remain anonymous, “Who will become my 400th friend? The Internet says I have 399 friends, but my Friday nights say I have, like, 2.” Ouch. That quote hits home in a kind of painful way! Personally, I haven’t spoken to a bank teller in well over a year. Most of my Christmas shopping this year will be done on Amazon.com. I share stories about my kids with friends over Facebook. Three events that would traditionally be accomplished via a face-to-face encounter have been reduced to me, a keyboard and a conglomeration of binary, bits, packets and code that completely baffle me.
In a way, the internet has dissolved some of the personal connections in my community. The internet has also created other connections, but none as personal as human-to-human interaction.
On the flip side, I am currently writing a blog post that has the potential to be seen by tens and tens of people (I try to keep my expectations realistic). While I will most likely have a personal connection with a few of the readers, the vast majority (including my professor and classmates) will probably be people with whom I have never had a face-to-face conversation. In this way, the internet has constructed personal connections for me in a virtual community that would have never existed otherwise.
So has the internet destroyed community? In a way, yes. In another way, no. But I’m just one person in this global village. What is your opinion?
Online references
http://www.suite101.com/content/origin-of-the-internet-a52825
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/41963.Neil_Postman
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