Online Communities Argument
Every day all over the world, people log onto instant messaging programs to chat with people, interact within an online forum, or log onto computer gaming servers to battle in virtual competitions. People today are starving for human interaction, and a quick and easy fix is an electronic network, instantly interconnecting people, allowing them to exchange ideas and thoughts freely. The virtual online communities of today have become a common place among many in society. It has become a way of life, just as the television has in the last half century. Virtual communities provide an easy outlet for entertaining, socializing, and discussing from the comfort of ones own home. Some people are becoming dependent on these networks to satisfy the human desire to want interaction and to build relationships. Why are mobile phone companies now incorporating instant messaging software on cellular phones? What is so wrong with a normal conversation? Is this the human interaction that we need? People want real conversations and interactions, and they turn to virtual communities for gratification. When viewed as an alternate way of life, virtual communities remove people from real emotional human relationships, remove a sense of the real, and are a negative technological fix to fulfill the need for human interaction.
The other day a couple friends of mine were joking around with each other on an instant messaging program. After exchanging a few offensive comments, my friend stated, “I can never tell if people are being serious”. How can we tell if people are being serious in a conversation? Body language and tone of voice are key factors when communicating with someone. These traits tell a lot about what a person is saying because they are a direct correlation of what they are feeling. Emotions are a very important factor in the interaction among humans, and they are lost in the virtual community. It is very difficult to comprehend someone’s true thoughts by just reading text on a screen. Virtual communities today even incorporate visual symbols to help emulate peoples feelings, such as smilies and emoticons. These are used to help reinforce ones feelings that cannot be effectively displayed through a computer screen. Interpreting and displaying emotions is an important part of human relationships and communication. People that become overly attached to virtual communities may develop problems with real human interaction. They seem to have no control of their lives, and so they turn to virtual communities called MUDs for a sense of self. These people display signs of depression in their lives. Some say that virtual communities may be a form of Prozac, or therapy, for depression and for people searching for their true self.
These people that are emotional dependent on cyber worlds turn to these virtual communities for acceptance, when the best cure for their depression would be to get out and focus on real life, and to make relationships with real people. With the increasing of number of computers and easy access to the internet, peoples interactions with virtual communities will only increase in the years to come. Children now are being exposed to the internet and virtual communities before they even reach adolescence. They will soon grow up being dependent on the internet as a source of human interaction. People can become addicted to online gaming which in turn ruins relationships. The fixation of interacting through cyberspace will only worsen in the years to come and more people will sit at home, stranded in cyberspace, separating themselves from real human relationships.
A rapidly growing virtual community today is online gaming. Personal computers and video game consoles can be connected to the internet, allowing users to compete against each other as if they were right next to each other. This adds a whole new dimension to gaming, providing a challenge to users, and bonding people with common interests in a virtual community of gaming. Many popular online games are violently realistic, placing the player in a world of combat and destruction. These games are mainly focused on killing and death. Points are often time scored by how many “kills” a player can achieve. Some of these games that people obsess with are actually modeled after military training tools used by the United States military. The military uses them to prepare soldiers for war and combat, where real people die. Many individuals in the online gaming world lose respect for death and war. Death becomes a game to them; they lose a sense of reality. While online gaming is a source of entertainment, it can be numbing to what is real in life, as with virtual communities like MUDs. People who spend their time connected to MUDs, chat rooms, forums, online gaming and other cyberspace communities often live two lives. One in cyberspace and one in reality. These people are focused on a simulation of life that is powered by imagination and computers, and nothing more. Their obsession causes them to lose perspective and what is real in life.
Some may oppose and claim that virtual communities are a simulation of life that could help improve life outside of cyberspace. They are an efficient source of expressing new ideas, broadening horizons, and encouraging communication between people. These communities in a sense could be a type of practice for interaction in the real world, as airline pilots train in a flight simulator. Virtual communities pose no harm to society, and in no way should be denied, as long as they are not used as a substitute for real life. The fact is humans are not meant to be emotionaly dependent on a simulation of interactions. Often when this occurs people stop interacting in reality, and become dependent on these communities for happiness. For individuals to improve their lives outside of cyberspace, real human relationships need to be formed. Relationships within a cyber world are a form of simulated interaction, and are nothing in comparison to real human affairs.
If viewed and treated as an alternative to the life a person has, virtual communities divide people from real human relationships, numb them from reality, and have a negative effect on their lives. Because it is so easy now to become attached and accepted in cyberspace by individuals who cannot see each other, and do not have judgment upon each other, people turn to these communities for relationships. Virtual communities need to be kept in perspective, and in moderation. They should not be abused or relied upon. What ever happened to town gatherings and social events? “… is it really sensible to suggest that the way to revitalize community is to sit alone in our rooms, typing at our networked computers and filling our lives with virtual friends” (Sherry Turkle)? The answer is no.