The Internet is the last technological breakthroughs in interpersonal communication, following the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. Social life has been affected by the innovative features provided by the internet which are, among others, the possibility to do everything at distance, to play games in virtual worlds, to communicate with the anonymity afforded to users, and the possibility to join meeting groups in which people have similar interests and values.
Social life has taken a different shape above all with the revolution of the internet communication through mails, meeting sites and social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn.
Social networking on the Internet combines various ways for users to interact, such as text chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, and discussion groups. It is a revolution for the communication and the way to share information with each other. Hundreds of millions of people are using social networking every day, and it now seems that social networking is a part of everyday life for a lot of people, making it a very success.
One of the internet's main objectives is to establish a way to communicate between individuals more or less connected. However the evolution of the Internet has a great impact on the social relations which have changed positively and negatively due to the Web.
“There is a tendency by critics to blame technology first when social change occurs", Keith Hampton, a professor at the Annenberg School, said in a statement for a study released by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication.
What does the internet communication provoke?
?On the one hand, the main critic to the internet communication is that it has a tendency to lead to social isolation, simply because the more time you people spend on the internet the less they spend it in the « real life ».
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSkk-t03BOw&NR=1
Although the participation to forums or to emails exchange assumes a social interaction, the big users have the tendency to spend less time with their family or friends. It has been also studied that they spend less time to work, to think, or to make domestic work. They give less importance to the resting time and are more likely to sacrifice their sleeping time.
Indeed, the internet is an attraction to be lazy and to not leave your home to do all the things of daily life. You can shop, date, talk, play, and even have cybersex while staying comfortably at home.
Another negative feature of the internet communication is the anonymity and the impersonal elements which might encourage users with personal taboo or lack of self confidence to live a secret life on the internet and to steep themselves in a virtual world. You can be anyone you wish to be on the internet, even if you are unattractive, shy, unpopular, or have trouble carrying on a conversation with people face to face in real life.
It happens also to some people to be addicted to the internet and this can deeply affect their social life. Internet addiction can lead to withdrawal, feeling angry, tense, or depressed when the Internet is not available, excessive Internet use, resulting in a loss of time, mood swings, including arguments, lying, isolation, fatigue, and poor achievement of goals. The comfort provided by the Internet finally kills their spirit of initiative and their desire to move.
These people, spending the majority of their time in front of a computer, are known as « No-life » or « geek ». There is a rise observed of these “No-life” who become dependent on the internet use until a point where they forget the main rules of hygiene such as eating and washing themselves.
In some most extreme case, online games such as Second Life, World of Warcraft or Habbo who have developed considerably, aim to create a "virtual life" aimed at users who want to adopt a new life characterized by "dream". But these games are not only extremely additives, but also very influential on the behavior of players. Indeed, users often tend to shut themselves in a virtual world and away from the real world, up to risk losing any physical contact with people around them. These Internet users have the characteristic to not realize this and think that they create new social links on the Web. Despite this reality, the Internet may cause a total disconnection between a user and the real world and can thus undermine the creation of social ties.
On the other hand, the use of the internet in social interaction might simply be seen as a provider of better efficiency and opportunities to communicate with each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTfOfIj6uhM&feature=related
Social networks on the internet are very successful because they facilitate a lot of interpersonal interactions not possible in the physical world. People enjoy human interaction and thus enjoy internet tools that facilitate them through discussion, interaction, and sharing of common interests. The use of the internet enables us to be and interact virtually somewhere we are not physically.
Social networks enable people to keep contact and share a piece of their mutual life even if they don’t see each other. It also helps people to have a wider and diverse social circle.
"It turns out that those who use the Internet and mobile phones have notable social advantages," Hampton said. "People use the technology to stay in touch and share information in ways that keep them socially active and connected to their communities."
The internet is also a way to equalize people socially. Indeed people with a smaller social network or a greater social anxiety might be helped by the use of the internet. In this case, the internet is most useful in the initial contact which might not happened in real life because of lack of self confidence or social anxiety. They can meet and get to know other people better through the net, and when they feel more comfortable and intimate with the person and the relationship they created “virtually”, they can meet in the real life and then bring this relationship into a traditional face-to-face relation. The internet is not a threat for the social contact in the real life as long as the people use it as a tool to improve them.
"People's social worlds are enhanced by new communication technologies. It is a mistake to believe that Internet use and mobile phones plunge people into a spiral of isolation", Keith Hampton says, a professor at the Annenberg school.
As a conclusion, we can say that the impact of the internet on social life is not clear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-saZ95OgY&feature=related
Internet is initially supposed to help us improve our relationships in real life and not deteriorated them. Unfortunately the use of the internet may reach some extreme case where the user become dependent or addicted to the net but it is then the user’s responsibility only. The threat of social isolation due to the internet is dependent on the character of the person.
Because nothing can replace the contacts in the real life and people need interaction with each other, they must be able to get away from their computer to have a healthy, happy, and productive life. So, as long as we don’t forget that, the internet should help us to improve our relationships.
Sources
http://www.medrounds.org/ophthalmology-pearls/2010/02/whats-buzz-about-social-networks.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/com482/tyler(2002).pdf
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