I think it's really intersting, Abaya, some of the things I hear you say in response to these websites- "Will people stop interacting?" "Why do people choose to interact over these sites instead of meeting people face to face?" "What kind of impact do these sites have on social skills?" These are all questions that I explored in-depth while getting my degree in Multimedia. We talked a lot about the future of the internet, and what the internet does to people and society and cultural interactions.
I feel like sites like this are a good thing. Hell, I feel like the whole internet "phenonom"/AIM/friendster/blogs/etc is a good thing. The internet connects us in a way that was never before possible- think about it, I can talk to you, Abaya, who is in grad school in another country. Before oh.... 1998ish, that wouldn't be possible unless I knew you in person. Perhaps I could give you a phone call, have to be short tho because long distance is expensive. I could send you letters.... but who has time to write? With the internet, I can be on TFP and you can be on TFP and your ideas and my ideas and everyone else's ideas all mesh together and we're connected.
I know I sound sort of starry eyed talking about it, but it's really amazing to me how much the internet has jumped in five years. Since I started in college to now, the use of the internet to connect people is just astounding. My freshman year there were teachers who barely knew how to check their e-mail; now, teachers are using e-mail to pass out assignments, give out the syllabus, and give updates to their students. You can get streaming video on your cell phone, internet on your cell phone, wireless practally everywhere on your laptop (hell, McDonalds has wireless now). We're moving into an era where the world of information is expanding, and that scares some people. You know how people ban books from public libraries because of the messages they convey? Well, those same people are usually scared of the internet because it's raw information in it's purest unfiltered form. No "moral majority" on the internet filtering out content, no spellcheck, no footnotes, just people throwing out everything they know into one big cauldron, ready to be stirred up and spat back out one pageview at a time. I think it's great- I want to swim in it, expierence the internet for what it can be, throw the reigns off and let it run wild.
I want to know EVERYTHING, and the best way to do that is with my 3mbs connection and a plug straight into the side of my head
