In “Identity in the Age of the Internet,” “Doug” is a college aged man with multiple online identities. The one that stood out to me was the furry. Perhaps I’m a bit biased; furries freak me out more than I care to say (for those who don’t know what a furry is… some people like anthropomorphic cartoon-type animals… really like them). But the idea of this MUD, especially Doug’s role in it, seems fundamentally disturbing to me. Doug says that he doesn’t say a whole lot- he mostly watches, and he feels like he’s a “sexual tourist” (actual sexual tourists are people, often pedophiles, who travel abroad for inexpensive and exotic sex trades, but that’s beside the point). This is so many levels removed from actual sex with another human being that I’m afraid for the species. If people can find such isolating sexual practices arousing, what hope is there for breeding? Yes, sure, natural selection has always targeted gamers (you can either give your kids a talk on safe sex or a D&D manual), but I genuinely worry about a culture that chooses pretend pretend sex over the pursuit of real sex. And this isolation is reflected in all relationships, not just sex. Most people have at least a few friendships that are exclusively online, sometimes even with people they’ve never met. Doug is in no way exceptional. He reflects what appears to me to be a trend towards cold, alienating computer relationships over genuine human connections.
In what ways have computers damaged the quality of human interaction?
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2 comments:
Interesting post, Clare; you certainly pull no punches. And you certainly have a point with the "cold, alienating computer relationships" - your feelings echo many, even of your generation and younger, who forsake Facebook and quit Myspace because of the inherent "shallowness" to those "friendships".
But there are many who don't, and who find some measure of fulfillment with online relationships, friend and other. The question, I suppose, would be what can you get out of the real, "genuine human connections" you mention that you can't from a conversation mediated by computer instead of voice. In the case of sex the answer, at a minimum at least, is obvious, which would be physical contact, but don't forget that there is a strong psychological and emotional bond with that physical connection - which is why the same act could be so enjoyed with consensual sex and so damaging with rape, for example. So there are many facets of sexual experience that don't require physical contact.
Very opinionated and thought-out post.
-Prof. Castle
Clare, I don't think that computers are completely damaging humans interactions with others. In the case of Doug, who is a "sexual tourist" I believe that even though he is watching others in his online game world, who's to say that he doesn't have healthy relationships with frineds in the real world. I agree that we all have some people that we exclusively talk to online, but we all do have real friends that we interact with on a day to day basis. - Liz
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