Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: The E on January 01, 2011, 04:34:33 am
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A few reasons why living in the now is so damn awesome (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/reasons-to-be-cheerful.html).
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THE END IS NEAR!!!
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Why do I get the feeling that the thread title-like comments are usually misunderstood?
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All the pointless "Kosh hates Charlie Stross" business has been split out. Debate the points, not the person.
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Nice one, I've read something similar recently.
Charlie states computer's much better. That's fine, true... but what they're doing to this society is far from good. I heard there are 1-2 million Japanese teenagers who absolutely don't have a social life, and spend all time in front of their PCs/consoles. People talk rarely and... now it's become rare to remember person X's birthday because we have Facebook doing that for us.
EDIT: My computer did not want me to say the truth!
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How can someone who spends all day communicating with people not have a social life?
Also: but what they're doing to this society is far from bad
is pretty much the opposite of what you wanted to say.
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Charlie states computer's much better. That's fine, true... but what they're doing to this society is far from bad. I heard there are 1-2 million Japanese teenagers who absolutely don't have a social life, and spend all time in front of their PCs/consoles. People talk rarely and... now it's become rare to remember person X's birthday because we have Facebook doing that for us.
Japanese hikikomori are pretty bad, but I think that's got more to do with the failing economic situation in Japan than addiction to computers. It's those South Korean mumorpugers you gotta watch out for. :P
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How can someone who spends all day communicating with people not have a social life?
Communicating via Facebook has nothing to do with real social life.
Also: but what they're doing to this society is far from bad
is pretty much the opposite of what you wanted to say.
I meant "good". Apparently, my PC did not want me to say the truth. :lol:
It's those South Korean mumorpugers you gotta watch out for. :P
Yeah, they're in very bad conditions.
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Communicating via Facebook has nothing to do with real social life.
Except, you know, it does, because it's social interaction. If anything, it makes having a social life easier than ever.
Honestly, it's so much easier and convenient to see a friend that lives a thousand miles away on Facebook than it is to call or write.
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Scotty, if you really want to talk to someone, you do it face to face unless it's impossible. Facebook's presumed positive effects on social life are just an illusion.
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Scotty, if you really want to talk to someone, you do it face to face unless it's impossible. Facebook's presumed positive effects on social life are just an illusion.
Care to back that up with anything? I doubt it, because it's as pure of an opinion as you're ever going to spout.
I'm not going to spend $10 in gas to drive out to my friends' houses that don't live very close just to say hi when I can do that with Facebook. Next you're probably going to tell me that the telephone's presumed positive effects on social life are just an illusion.
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Scotty, if you really want to talk to someone, you do it face to face unless it's impossible. Facebook's presumed positive effects on social life are just an illusion.
Cite source right the hell now.
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You know, I think I am the only person I know IRL who doesn't have a Facebook. Is this screwed up?
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What kind of source, Scotty and NGTM-1R? Talking to a person via Facebook, chatrooms or forums sure isn't like talking IRL. Well, it helps when we can't see a person all the time, and eventually becomes useful, but that's not true "social life".
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Japanese hikikomori are pretty bad, but I think that's got more to do with the failing economic situation in Japan than addiction to computers.
Yeah, the hikikomori phenomenon is rather more complex than simple social isolation, and the economic and social turnover in Japan is a big component of it. I've heard people claim that it's something that could only happen in Japan, but I'm honestly not so sure, since I've heard of people all over the world in similar situations. (Hell, I just about was myself for a while.)
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What kind of source, Scotty and NGTM-1R? Talking to a person via Facebook, chatrooms or forums sure isn't like talking IRL. Well, it helps when we can't see a person all the time, and eventually becomes useful, but that's not true "social life".
Any kind of source that might have a clue what the **** it's talking about. It's clear you don't. I mean christ on a pogo stick made of ****, it's called "social networking" and it used to have be done in bars and by going to your bosses' parties and other time-consuming and boring activities and now it's quick and easy and you're telling me this is a step backwards?
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What kind of source, Scotty and NGTM-1R? Talking to a person via Facebook, chatrooms or forums sure isn't like talking IRL. Well, it helps when we can't see a person all the time, and eventually becomes useful, but that's not true "social life".
I find it infinitely easier to interact with people online than in person. It's the difference between being able to have a conversation and mumbling something nonsensical and quite literally running away.
Maybe you prefer IRL communication, but that doesn't make a primarily online-based social life less real. Don't be such a purist asshat over your own snobby opinions.
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Japanese hikikomori are pretty bad, but I think that's got more to do with the failing economic situation in Japan than addiction to computers.
Yeah, the hikikomori phenomenon is rather more complex than simple social isolation, and the economic and social turnover in Japan is a big component of it. I've heard people claim that it's something that could only happen in Japan, but I'm honestly not so sure, since I've heard of people all over the world in similar situations. (Hell, I just about was myself for a while.)
I hadn't heard of the specific name before but it sounds "interesting" from an academic perspective.
I was nearly in that state myself. For a while I wasn't employed, was living at home with the parents (still am unfortunately) and for a couple of weeks the only time I was outside was to get some groceries and clean up around the house. I think for a few days I didn't even talk to anyone because everyone was out of the house. I'm not good at total social isolation so I organized a pub night to get me out of the house but I can understand where some people might just fall into not going out at all in a situation like that. The difference I guess is that these people have also typically experienced educational failure and that combined with high competition and a poor economy are just stuck - in North America our educational systems provide many more avenues to be successful but the economy sucks.
Still... going along with the OP I'm going to resist calling the "good old days" anything but a creation by those looking back with rose colored glasses. It's not bad right now... on the whole it's pretty good. But it's not super either. I demand better from reality :D
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i kinda find that social networks are a haven for the anti-social, who are trying to use it as a replacement for a social life proper. for people who already have a social life then social networking becomes a tool for optimizing that social life. most people who use social networks fit into the latter group. for your typical shut-in it becomes not only a total replacement for social interaction, but it also consumes all the time needed to manage a real social life. so it can only compound the individual's already existing problems. its the perfect environment for fueling psychotic behaviors and delusions.
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I find it infinitely easier to interact with people online than in person. It's the difference between being able to have a conversation and mumbling something nonsensical and quite literally running away.
Maybe you prefer IRL communication, but that doesn't make a primarily online-based social life less real. Don't be such a purist asshat over your own snobby opinions.
Oh, I'm not snobby. It's just that I'm well aware of the illusions we usually experience.
Any kind of source that might have a clue what the **** it's talking about. It's clear you don't. I mean christ on a pogo stick made of ****, it's called "social networking" and it used to have be done in bars and by going to your bosses' parties and other time-consuming and boring activities and now it's quick and easy and you're telling me this is a step backwards?
It kills pure interaction between people. When talking to a person, you have to look at his/her eyes, use your hands to better explain what you're saying, etc. etc.
When I started using PCs to "communicate", I lost those capacities and people who don't rely too much on the internet to do things made me notice that. It wasn't funny and led me think a lot about how I changed in the past 4-5 years. Now, I'm not saying I'll change my habits completely, but certainly won't consider Facebook and the like the perfect way to have a social life.
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Yeah but Mobius, you're not exactly the best person to make yourself a case study for the rest of society. Even online your interactions with the forum were so poor that you ended up monkeyed. You can't assume everyone is as bad at dealing with social situations as you are.
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It kills pure interaction between people. When talking to a person, you have to look at his/her eyes, use your hands to better explain what you're saying, etc. etc.
Consider if I'm driving a car full of my buddies, and I'm carrying on a conversation with the bloke sitting directly behind me. Are we then not having real-life, "pure interaction"?
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Forums hardly count, Karajorma. I was refering to FB, chatrooms and the link. Here we talk in (nearly) total anonymity so I wouldn't even consider discussions like this as an example of "real social interaction". And the monkeying is a rather poor example because it was caused by much different stuff.
And Solatar, it's not the same thing. You're still physically close, can listen to each other's voice and can still play around with gestuality.
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What about a telephone? I can hear the voice then. What about Skype or videochatting stuff? What if I text somebody in a situation (football game, etc) where I can't hear to talk to them?
The point I'm trying to make here is that it's not so simple as drawing "lines" between different kinds of communication. Personal anecdotes are hardly evidence, but I've had plenty of good times in chatrooms with people I know IRL. How is this socializing different than us going and meeting up somewhere? You can't say that it's just the "seeing of gestures", because there are plenty of ways (in a car, on the phone) you can have socializing without them. If you can't use that as the determiner, then what's the difference?
Online socializing isn't a full replacement for real socializing, but neither is it something completely different. Whether or not web socializing is "just as good" as real socializing depends entirely on who's involved.
EDIT: BTW Mobius, like you I'm disregarding e-mail and forum as a bit "different".
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Funny thing the internet does to the way people communicate. Back in '05 when I joined HLP I was going to middle school at a tiny private school with 70 something other eighth graders. Most of the people I knew went to a private high school while I went to a public high school and joined the time sink known as marching band, causing me to completely lose touch with everyone I knew. As a result, I've been active on HLP longer than I've known my closest friends.
So how has this affected my communication with people IRL?
1) I'm very antagonistic. I disagree with people just for the sake of disagreement, which I assume is a result of spending time on intarnet forums such as HLP, where posts stating simply "I agree" are unnecessary and critical discussion is encouraged.
2) Whenever I chat with IRL people online their messages are always short fragments usually like a stream of thought, while mine are typically arranged into large chunks. I assume that this is because on intarnet boards posting with several short, low-content, consecutive posts is the opposite of what is wanted.
These are the only differences I've noticed that I can actually attach to specific causes. I'm actually a decent public speaker, so I think that quality of IRL communication is largely independent of the ratio of online vs. offline communication.
As for Facebook, I honestly don't think it has any negative impact on face-to-face communication. Personally, I use Facebook first and foremost as a utility for scheduling meetings with people/groups. E-mail is not centralized and just not as effective as Facebook for this. Secondarily, I use Facebook to talk to people without having to go see them. It's far cheaper to open a chat window than to walk a half mile to a bus stop, pay 3 dollars, ride 20 minutes to the next town to hang out with someone and then come back. Frankly, I'm not convinced that I would even do that if facebook didn't exist.
But I don't use Facebook my definite means of socialization, per se. Have I stopped talking to people IRL after I got a facebook account? No. If anything, I talk to people IRL more (though I doubt there's a strong causal relationship between the two).
tl;dr If internet makes you a bad IRL communicator, you're doing it wrong.
EDIT: While this is entirely anecdotal evidence, I still think that a lot of the points I made are generalizable in most cases, with the exceptions being obvious and informal.
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Forums hardly count, Karajorma. I was refering to FB, chatrooms and the link. Here we talk in (nearly) total anonymity so I wouldn't even consider discussions like this as an example of "real social interaction". And the monkeying is a rather poor example because it was caused by much different stuff.
Actually the monkeying was for the same stuff. You were monkeyed due to your inability to interact with the rest of the forums in a non-disruptive manner. It doesn't matter whether you call it real social interaction or not. The simple fact is that you did a very bad job of fitting in with it. Which means there's a good chance that you'd do a very bad job on Facebook or other electronic mediums too and maybe even in real life.
You failed to interact with the forum in the normal manner to such a degree that out of the thousands of people on HLP you're one of the few who required special measures. So you can't use your anecdotal evidence as proof of why Facebook is bad for real social interaction. Your an anomaly, an outlier. There's no reason to believe that whatever effect Facebook had on you will happen to other people.
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I primarily use facebook to peoplewatch rather than communicate/socialize. :P
But I find that I *can't* interact with people normally unless I've interacted with them online for extended periods of time. It's easier to get to know people when you're not distracted by overanalyzing tones and gestures and body language and you don't have to worry about eye contact (which I find intensely unsettling).
Instant messaging is a godsend. Not only can I scroll up and look at what was previously said in a conversation if I forget (one of the massive barriers keeping me from in-person conversations), I have extra time to plan out my words and phrasing before hitting 'enter'.
Hell, if I was born fifty years ago, I'd probably only communicate with someone by writing on a sheet of paper back and forth. If I was illiterate, I'd probably end up in a cave under a bridge somewhere with eight cats and a tomato plant. :|
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Funny thing the internet does to the way people communicate. Back in '05 when I joined HLP I was going to middle school at a tiny private school with 70 something other eighth graders. Most of the people I knew went to a private high school while I went to a public high school and joined the time sink known as marching band, causing me to completely lose touch with everyone I knew. As a result, I've been active on HLP longer than I've known my closest friends.
So how has this affected my communication with people IRL?
1) I'm very antagonistic. I disagree with people just for the sake of disagreement, which I assume is a result of spending time on intarnet forums such as HLP, where posts stating simply "I agree" are unnecessary and critical discussion is encouraged.
2) Whenever I chat with IRL people online their messages are always short fragments usually like a stream of thought, while mine are typically arranged into large chunks. I assume that this is because on intarnet boards posting with several short, low-content, consecutive posts is the opposite of what is wanted.
These are the only differences I've noticed that I can actually attach to specific causes. I'm actually a decent public speaker, so I think that quality of IRL communication is largely independent of the ratio of online vs. offline communication.
As for Facebook, I honestly don't think it has any negative impact on face-to-face communication. Personally, I use Facebook first and foremost as a utility for scheduling meetings with people/groups. E-mail is not centralized and just not as effective as Facebook for this. Secondarily, I use Facebook to talk to people without having to go see them. It's far cheaper to open a chat window than to walk a half mile to a bus stop, pay 3 dollars, ride 20 minutes to the next town to hang out with someone and then come back. Frankly, I'm not convinced that I would even do that if facebook didn't exist.
But I don't use Facebook my definite means of socialization, per se. Have I stopped talking to people IRL after I got a facebook account? No. If anything, I talk to people IRL more (though I doubt there's a strong causal relationship between the two).
tl;dr If internet makes you a bad IRL communicator, you're doing it wrong.
I must have used the wrong words to describe my short experience. It's not as tragic as it sounds from that one post, as I still tend to talk more IRL than I do via the internet.
What I said is that the way to talk to people has changed somehow. It's no longer "pure", though I'm working on it, and it's hard to notice how much we've changed until we talk to people who don't use the internet very often. Just like you, thesizzler, I experience both 1) and 2) and that has to mean something.
What about a telephone? I can hear the voice then. What about Skype or videochatting stuff? What if I text somebody in a situation (football game, etc) where I can't hear to talk to them?
The point I'm trying to make here is that it's not so simple as drawing "lines" between different kinds of communication. Personal anecdotes are hardly evidence, but I've had plenty of good times in chatrooms with people I know IRL. How is this socializing different than us going and meeting up somewhere? You can't say that it's just the "seeing of gestures", because there are plenty of ways (in a car, on the phone) you can have socializing without them. If you can't use that as the determiner, then what's the difference?
Online socializing isn't a full replacement for real socializing, but neither is it something completely different. Whether or not web socializing is "just as good" as real socializing depends entirely on who's involved.
EDIT: BTW Mobius, like you I'm disregarding e-mail and forum as a bit "different".
My opinion is not as extremist as you think, Solatar. Of course telephone calls and Skype are all another matter, and have somehow improved social interactions but we can't deny the fact that calls and Skype are severely underused compared to forums, chatrooms and Facebook.
Gestures are probably a cultural matter. I tend to give a lot of importance to them because of their wide usage here. Nothing of critical importance, though.
Actually the monkeying was for the same stuff. You were monkeyed due to your inability to interact with the rest of the forums in a non-disruptive manner. It doesn't matter whether you call it real social interaction or not. The simple fact is that you did a very bad job of fitting in with it. Which means there's a good chance that you'd do a very bad job on Facebook or other electronic mediums too and maybe even in real life.
You failed to interact with the forum in the normal manner to such a degree that out of the thousands of people on HLP you're one of the few who required special measures. So you can't use your anecdotal evidence as proof of why Facebook is bad for real social interaction. Your an anomaly, an outlier. There's no reason to believe that whatever effect Facebook had on you will happen to other people.
There are causes and there are reasons. The causes are those you mentioned (though you're pretty wrong on a couple of things), the reasons are that I found certain interactions between me and other community members disturbing, those bad interactions triggered a chain reaction and I had to face the consequences. Remember when I said what I thought without caring about the rank of the person I was interacting with? It happened because I initally thought genuine RL-like interactions with other HLP members were actually possible and therefore talked roughly pretending the impossible. As obvious as it may seem, I've completely changed my mind after what happened. No one can pretend to handle forum interactions as RL ones due to the obvious differences in terms of ranking, culture, etc. etc.
Let's face it, IRL you don't use CPs to play Pontius Pilate and force someone to shut up, knowing that there will be no consequences for you. IRL, if you do something wrong to a person you meet every day, you're going to struggle with it every day. One way or another, you'll solve the problem and learn something new about social life. RL interactions are much better because you can experience the good and the bad of them much more evidently.
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There are causes and there are reasons. The causes are those you mentioned (though you're pretty wrong on a couple of things), the reasons are that I found certain interactions between me and other community members disturbing, those bad interactions triggered a chain reaction and I had to face the consequences. Remember when I said what I thought without caring about the rank of the person I was interacting with? It happened because I initally thought genuine RL-like interactions with other HLP members were actually possible and therefore talked roughly pretending the impossible. As obvious as it may seem, I've completely changed my mind after what happened. No one can pretend to handle forum interactions as RL ones due to the obvious differences in terms of ranking, culture, etc. etc.
The problem with this is that I've never displayed any regard for any of this either. I've talked back to authority here quite a lot. I've argued with moderators and admins alike. I'm a vocal critic of the board's efforts to keep drama to a minimum because I think that having some drama provides a necessary outlet. I criticized the hosted projects policy rather heavily. I've criticized Diaspora and BP alike. (And I'd like to offer props to the Diaspora guys for letting me actually do it and actually trying to talk to me about it rather than simply splitlocking to make the criticism go away as BP, or for that matter INF, does.) The worst I've ever gotten in my forum history was political-prisonered for a week or so.
So no. It's not that you talked back to authority in the slightest. Your problems ran, and continue to run, deeper than that.
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I must say, I have kept in touch with friends I otherwise wouldn't have with Myspace and Facebook.
My best friend IRL and I would not be friends anymore if we hadn't seen each other again after high school when I asked her out to a concert.
I keep in touch with a friend from RL who's now living in Germany with Facebook.
I've kept touch with people I knew who are now living in other states.\
Although it isn't my first choice of communication most of the time, I don't think it's killed my social life, I think it's allowed me to manage things socially that would otherwise have been the death knell for friendships (moving out of country)
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NGTM-1R, I don't want to sound offensive but there are people, me included, who thought you deserved more when you came out with *certain* posts. Differences in terms of results are explained by different aptitudes, and let me explain why. I acted without self-control, pretending excuses from member X and Y, excuses that would have obviously never come, and what followed was far from being good. It happened because I handled the issue as if it was in RL, pretending respect as I would with a person I know, trying to solve problems, etc. etc. This, of course, wasn't possible in a forum where a button can "sort out things" thanks to disparities. The RL equivalent of that is dictatorship, and I dare anyone to stay IRL with people who tend to act like that and can influence both your life and your job. If you have a nazi boss, you make sure you don't see him/her when you're not working. And when you're working, you respect him/her without strengthening the relationship between you two. Similis simili gaudet. (http://cougar.eb.com/dictionary/gaudet+simili)
So no, I no longer expect anything from interactions with community members other than a sense of cooperation, mutual respect and whatever the situations demand. I know of community members who have met each other and therefore have experienced a completely different kind of interaction, but that's the gross minority of us. Let's face it, there can be no real friendship between community members unless you have a chance to meet them, and that is extremely difficult for all those non-native speakers of English. I for one no longer believe in that kind of illusion, and I'm fine with it.
Let's not this subject any further, even if it's partly related to the topic.
Mars, you pretty much summed up what the ideal use of Facebook and Myspace would be: keep in touch with people you can hardly see now for whatever their reasons. Note the difference between using those tools to maintain friendship and create it from nowhere. The former is fully understandable while the second is... questionable.
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@Mobius: Except you're ignoring the fact that those attitudes change between different forums and between different cultures. I've become very close friends with people I've never met in person, and I mean an actual friendship. Obviously, it's more rare and takes more time, but it's possible.
On the other hand, I do understand your position regarding this forum in particular. Though I'm not familiar with your particular case, I do find monkeys, bans and locks are handed like candies around here, and in my humble opinion there seems to be a general tendency to... let's say, give different treatment to different members, and "magically" shut some members up, not always on a solid or properly justified basis, and in a way that in real life would probably get the crap beated out of you in anything but job relations.
Even then, my personal opinions regarding the handling of moderation on these forums are out of topic here.
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@Mobius: Except you're ignoring the fact that those attitudes change between different forums and between different cultures. I've become very close friends with people I've never met in person, and I mean an actual friendship. Obviously, it's more rare and takes more time, but it's possible.
Of course it'd be much easier to keep in touch with Italian forumites elsewhere and become friends, and these would be the effects of different cultures on the subject. It's just that, if I were you, I wouldn't rely too much on friendship that pop up from everywhere. I've personally deleted some 130 "friends" from my Facebook list because... see the difference between "friend" and friend?
One of the bad things of modern society (and this is where we get back on topic) are fake relationships. Everyone's a friend. You add it to your Facebook list, ergo he/she's a friend. You end up keeping in touch with the wrong people (I myself was involved in a hopeless relationship because of distances, and one of my friends pretty much wasted one year of his life chatting with a girl he never met because he realize she was fooling him. The result? A few months of depression), at times.
We live in a growing society, where Science can ensure us a lot of things, but this aspect of modern life we're discussing here is just insidious.
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Double posting for a good reason.
Now back into topic, it is my opinion that, at least south here things have improved a lot. Not that that was difficult considering our situation back in 2001, but going from failed state to emerging market, pulverising our foreign debt, and having pretty much every important social variable improving notably, is what I would call progress, regardless of some issues that still need to be solved.
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Yeah I know how bad things were in Argentina. I have relatives there.
I also know it was a beautiful country until a few decades ago, the perfect place where to live.
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It's just that, if I were you, I wouldn't rely too much on friendship that pop up from everywhere. I've personally deleted some 130 "friends" from my Facebook list because... see the difference between "friend" and friend?
One of the bad things of modern society (and this is where we get back on topic) are fake relationships. Everyone's a friend. You add it to your Facebook list, ergo he/she's a friend. You end up keeping in touch with the wrong people (I myself was involved in a hopeless relationship because of distances, and one of my friends pretty much wasted one year of his life chatting with a girl he never met because he realize she was fooling him. The result? A few months of depression), at times.
We live in a growing society, where Science can ensure us a lot of things, but this aspect of modern life we're discussing here is just insidious.
Yes, that's why I said it's rare. Let me stress this: It's FAR more rare, one or two at most in your whole life, but it's still possible.
On the other hand, quite some people I had considered friends in real life have turned their backs when I actually needed them for something. So deception is not exclusive to the domain of internet relations.
Yeah I know how bad things were in Argentina. I have relatives there.
Not surprising in an Italian, for all I know we could be relatives. :P
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If you lost friends you met in person (and that happens to virtually everyone), imagine what could happen with those e-friends. I don't want to discourage you, but you may end up being deluded.
Not surprising in an Italian, for all I know we could be relatives. :P
Rio de la Plata? :p
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I guess we may have an easier time if we define friendship, and our perspective while judging it. I'll try to be short: I define a friend as "someone who would help me if I needed his help, and would let me help him if he needed it, showing mutual caring with acts, and granting me access to their lives in that way". I've been an outcast most of my life for various reasons, so I must admit I'm not socially very able, even though it has been improving in the last years. So the only way I know how to show friendship is by being loyal, honest, helping with acts, and actually caring. It's hard for me to trust, and even harder to consider someone a friend.
On a side note, I believe Facebook should change "friends" to "known persons". It IS shocking to have people you know and care sharing a label as significant as that with "that guy/girl you met in the club a few weeks ago and seemed nice".
Not surprising in an Italian, for all I know we could be relatives. :P
Rio de la Plata? :p
Not even close. That may be a relief to you, considering you haven't even met me in person. :lol:
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Differences in terms of results are explained by different aptitudes, and let me explain why. I acted without self-control, pretending excuses from member X and Y, excuses that would have obviously never come, and what followed was far from being good. It happened because I handled the issue as if it was in RL, pretending respect as I would with a person I know, trying to solve problems, etc. etc. This, of course, wasn't possible in a forum where a button can "sort out things" thanks to disparities.
And yet most people have the social understanding not to make that sort of mistake here on a forum.
See why I'm saying your experiences online do not translate to others?
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Scotty, if you really want to talk to someone, you do it face to face unless it's impossible. Facebook's presumed positive effects on social life are just an illusion.
Cite source right the hell now.
Cite source that it does... I never heard of any research being done on this subject, although I am quite sure it was done at some point.
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He posited a point, and had no evidence to back it up. If you bring it up, back it up. Burden of proof is on him.
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I think this is a matter of perspective, not everyone uses the Internet in same way, as is very evident in this thread.
I'm not anti-social per say, but I limit my social contact to close friends and I tend to veiw Facebook and IM as very tedious. I wouldn't even be on Hard-Light if I weren't interested in FS. :blah:
I prefer talking to people face to face, that way I can better gauge their reactions, which I think is a result of my experiences.
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i dont see no point in social networking myself. i am completely antisocial, but i wont delude myself by creating an online personality different from my own on a social network. i visit less than 3 websites a day, this is the only forum i frequent, i may have 2 chat rooms i go to and then only rarely. i dont use social networking at all. i mostly use the internet as a technical reference. im worse in rl. i have nothing but contempt and hatred for others i may run into, including members of my own family. i can accomplish more in isolation than i could ever do among others.
social networking was meant as a tool to be used by people who already have active social lives. those who have no social life to manage have no buisness using social networking. they may do so, creating an image of themselves as how they wish to be seen. its a delusion. it may be helpful or it may not. i wouldn't go and say that social networking would take a normal person and turn them into a raving lunatic, but it could under the right conditions take someone with a shaky social standing and make their situation worse.
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i wouldn't go and say that social networking would take a normal person and turn them into a raving lunatic, but it could under the right conditions take someone with a shaky social standing and make their situation worse.
I can vouch for this personally. Almost destroyed the life of a guy in my year at school who fits that bill perfectly.
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Joshua and Scotty, how am I supposed to redirect your attention to such studies? I heard psychologists discussing the matter on various radio and TV channels, and their explanations were quite good. Heh, you don't even need those studies to realize that e-life is absolutely fake, and people cannot survive with it.
Another drawback of e-life: you learn things from the internet, only, and studies don't count unless they've been posted somewhere. :p
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Yes, well, that's because most such studies can be found on the net. Maybe behind a paywall, but on the net nonetheless. What you are presenting is anecdotal evidence (your own experiences) and hearsay (something you remember hearing on the radio once). Neither of which is a very good basis for any sort of argument.
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Studies you can find on the net aren't any more credible than those you can get to know elsewhere, and I find them more genuine. Also, don't forget that we live in different countries with different cultures, different interests and different concerns. Italians are ranked high in the list of Facebook (ab)users, so don't be surprised if the FB issue has little to no importance elsewhere. Also, let's forget my own experience because losing a habit absolutely isn't a social catastrophe.
Not a good basis of any sort of argument? "Facebook is an illusion, go out if you can and (re)build a true social life" is not the kind of phrase you don't remember.
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For the 99% of the world that is sane and not some kind of weird spergy, Facebook serves as a way to organize events in your real social life and is thus pretty much just a great thing.
Anyone who has social problems due to Facebook should probably seek help
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We already said FB has its uses and makes many aspects of life easier. It's the abuse that damages people.
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Not a good basis of any sort of argument? "Facebook is an illusion, go out if you can and (re)build a true social life" is not the kind of phrase you don't remember.
Yes. Simple messages are easily remembered. That doesn't make them true.
That statement, while certainly catchy, does not carry as much weight as a properly peer-reviewed, published study that shows the differences. Even a precis showing that such a study exists, and a little overview over the results carries more weight.
See, what I believe is that opinions like yours are a sign of living in deep future shock. You condemn certain forms of interaction as "not real", simply due to your inability or unwillingness to understand them, or the people who use them. You are certainly correct when saying that online interaction is missing several layers of nonverbal communication that are present in RL interactions, but I submit to you that that may not be such a bad thing, especially when communicating across cultural barriers.
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I thought it wasn't the case of even searching a study on the internet because I thought it was common knowledge that real social life is better than virtual life, and that FB is an illusion if abused.
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I thought it wasn't the case of even searching a study on the internet because I thought it was common knowledge that real social life is better than virtual life, and that FB is an illusion if abused.
"Common knowledge" is a starting point for scientific inquiry, but not a substitute.
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Facebook can be abused just like anything else (what can't be abused, including irl socialization? look at dekker). If you're the kind of person who can't control yourself on Facebook you have deeper problems and it's not Facebook's fault
in conclusion The Social Network is a great ****ing movie
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I thought it wasn't the case of even searching a study on the internet because I thought it was common knowledge that real social life is better than virtual life, and that FB is an illusion if abused.
Except "virtual" implies that it's a simulation and not real, and my activity on HLP for the past five years and activity on Facebook for the past two are both very real. Certainly activity online is no substitute for IRL socialization, but that doesn't mean that online socialization is "worse" that IRL socialization.
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I don't participate in social media on the grounds that I don't need it. Several of my colleagues do though, but research work that requires concentration while blabbering in Messenger doesn't work with me.
The big question for me is: is the personality you see in the internet the actual unmasked personality that is not tied by laws or not? With (usually) no fear of retribution, do people behave more as they would like to behave?
Beware of the Facebook though, I have shot down at least one person's application for work simply by the stuff what I found in his Facebook pages.
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I'm not much into using the 'puter' for social networking but I'm under the impression it's meant to augment not replace real world interaction.
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Just quickly saying that if some people get problems because of Facebook and other related services, those people are likely to be similar to the ones who start shooting at cars because they've played GTA: there was already something wrong with those people.
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you can say the same thing about something like alcoholism. some would like to believe that alcoholism is a disease in and of itself. of course im of the opinion that it is not a disease but a symptom of a much more deep seeded mental problem. give people a means of escape, and those that think they need to get away, will use it.
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Isn't the real problem not people using sites like Facebook to supplement social interactions, but people that only socialize via the web?
Or was that what you guys were discussing?
Facebook can be abused just like anything else (what can't be abused, including irl socialization? look at dekker). If you're the kind of person who can't control yourself on Facebook you have deeper problems and it's not Facebook's fault
in conclusion The Social Network is a great ****ing movie
I didn't think I would like it, but its actually a great movie. :yes:
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Isn't the real problem not people using sites like Facebook to supplement social interactions, but people that only socialize via the web?
That's the real problem, sure, but that doesn't mean a bad mix of the two can be good.
Or was that what you guys were discussing?
Well, not at the beginning of this thread. You can notice a lot of optimism in that blog entry, but if anyone claims the world is so much better now under all points of view, I'm going to disagree with that.