From: Noam Chomsky
Re: "What do you think about the Internet?"
"I think that there are good things about it, but
there are also aspects of it that concern and worry
me. This is an intuitive response -- I can't prove it
-- but my feeling is that, since people aren't Martians
or robots, direct face-to-face contact is an
extremely important part of human life. It helps
develop self-understanding and the growth of a
healthy personality.
"You just have a different relationship to somebody
when you're looking at them than you do when you're
punching away at a keyboard and some symbols come
back. I suspect that extending that form of abstract
and remote relationship, instead of direct, personal
contact, is going to have unpleasant effects on what
people are like. It will diminish their humanity, I
think."