my Ph.D dissertation topic

[Bioture]

good luck.

do you need to interview me? i am an internet celebrity, after all

Sure - would you give me free use on any quotes that you give me for publication?

[Bioture]

Yuck. Have fun wasting 4 years of your life researching that. You'd be better spent getting paid for a full-time job doing something you hate, unless you're really passionate about sociology, you really like the idea of "Dr" in front of your name, or you're just a masochist.

I currently work at the government as a management analyst.

I make good money.

But I also think about commiting suicide everyday.

And it's a Ph.D in IT, not sociology. This probably makes it worse.

[Ilya]

lots of harsh people in this thread

they got their phds already

PLAYER HATIN DEGREES

haaaaaaaaaaaaa

aieiaieaieaieaie. you can use that quote when you talk about how funny i am in your thesis

[Summa]

lol @ ppl getting butthurt over being told that their humanity has degraded and claiming "no evidence", if he didn't have @ least some evidence pointing to this, then he wouldn't present this in front of a panel and want further research.

it seems pretty sound to me

i am interested in what you mean by cyber-hermeneutics because i study hermeneutics. is there a claim in there that we learn differently from the internet than we do most other sources? or?

[paradise!]

seems ideal for a sociology dissertation not an IT one.

its connection with IT is flimsy





my $.02

[Epinephrine]

It's an interesting topic, but I think there are two problems with it:

The thesis is this: Cyberspace anonymity enables individuals within our current culture to express themselves freely as they are, without consequence, embarrassment, or restraint - and through an sociological, psychological, and historical examination of technological evidence, we can logically deduce that information technology produces a destructive cyber-culture that cannot be satiated, controlled, nor quarantined.

I fail to see why it is so extremely logical that cyber-culture would be destructive at all. I don't really see how the internet has made society worse in general. There are examples of bad to be sure, but there are also examples of good which are readibly attainable. I think you will have an extremely hard time 'logically' proving such a thing because it is not logically true.

Moreover, through examining the speciation of our technology, this cyber-culture has proven a fundamental shift from any previous methods of communication, socialization, and philosophy.

The second part of your thesis is at first glace, common sense. But if we look at how the internet world has evolved over time, we see the same basic institutions and rules that govern the 'real world' evolving on the internet. Sure the rules are different, but then again social rules are different in different countries too. But informal and formal rules do exist on the internet and increasingly moreso. So I think you will also have a very hard time proving that there has been a 'fundamental shift' unless you're taking a very superficial look at it ("talking to someone is real life is different from typing!!!")

[RednaZ]

What everyone is saying, your opinion on this whole thing and how you see it as logical, to me also doesn't seem right. But for exactly that reason I think that, if you manage to make your points, which I assume you will, this could be a very interesting piece.
Controversial pieces are never easy to get off the ground, but the best pieces are always the controversial pieces that do make a solid point imho.

[a hundred kazillion]

Are you talking only about the removal of inhibitions and a real douchebag of a person showing their "true" colors on the internet? Or are you also going to end up implying that this kind of anonymity goes beyond that and, for the lack of a better term, "turns good people bad" on the internet? Because I think you only mentioned the first, while I tend to believe both are true. Would you at least agree that these are two different things? Or would you argue that anyone who does act like a dick under this anonymity must have truly been a dick all along?

[Twerp]

Are you talking only about the removal of inhibitions and a real douchebag of a person showing their "true" colors on the internet? Or are you also going to end up implying that this kind of anonymity goes beyond that and, for the lack of a better term, "turns good people bad" on the internet? Because I think you only mentioned the first, while I tend to believe both are true. Would you at least agree that these are two different things? Or would you argue that anyone who does act like a dick under this anonymity must have truly been a dick all along?

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good"

You have strong inhibitions in life to keep you from doing many things in the real world, but the internet offers a place to vent anything. Not saying you're 100% of the time a dick, but part of your personality is dick-like.

[Bioture]

I fail to see why it is so extremely logical that cyber-culture would be destructive at all. I don't really see how the internet has made society worse in general. There are examples of bad to be sure, but there are also examples of good which are readibly attainable. I think you will have an extremely hard time 'logically' proving such a thing because it is not logically true.

Well this is in the examination of the evidence. Destructive in a sense that we lose all inhibition, which is reflected by what we use the internet for. And as for the worser society part, well, do you think communication has improved with cyberspace? Are people building meaningful relationships through facebook? Did you see the most recent southpark episode? Logically, through the preponderance of evidence, I'm aiming to deduce that it is destructive to nominal means of communication.

The second part of your thesis is at first glace, common sense. But if we look at how the internet world has evolved over time, we see the same basic institutions and rules that govern the 'real world' evolving on the internet. Sure the rules are different, but then again social rules are different in different countries too. But informal and formal rules do exist on the internet and increasingly moreso. So I think you will also have a very hard time proving that there has been a 'fundamental shift' unless you're taking a very superficial look at it ("talking to someone is real life is different from typing!!!")

But there is something fundamentally different, not just a difference in terms of evolution. From the telegraph to the telephone to the internet, there is something fundamentally different (the shift, if you will) about moving from conversations, even if it's a forum thread, to ad hoc status updates. There is a shift between an exchange of ideas, to an exchange of statuses. And that's a part of what's unraveling the fabric of our old society.

[Bioture]

Are you talking only about the removal of inhibitions and a real douchebag of a person showing their "true" colors on the internet? Or are you also going to end up implying that this kind of anonymity goes beyond that and, for the lack of a better term, "turns good people bad" on the internet? Because I think you only mentioned the first, while I tend to believe both are true. Would you at least agree that these are two different things? Or would you argue that anyone who does act like a dick under this anonymity must have truly been a dick all along?

Well the argument is that the douchebags that we are online is more the real "us" than how we act in our day-to-day activities, because in real life there are restrictions. I'm not sure about the "turns good people bad" part, however. I think we all have generally good intentions with the technology that we create, but we end up using it to do bad things.

edit: also, can anyone name one technology that was solely used for the advancement of mankind?

[Bioture]

i am interested in what you mean by cyber-hermeneutics because i study hermeneutics. is there a claim in there that we learn differently from the internet than we do most other sources? or?

Essentially I will be trying to dissect what cyberspace looks like to different people and different cultures. I haven't defined this area very well because it could go across countries, age groups, gender, etc. But what I'm trying to do here is examine these distinct "cultures" and the effects of cyberspace within those "cultures." Right now I'm leaning towards age groups and the internet at is inception - or what the groundwork was and why assuming that people can moderate themselves was a pretty bad idea.

[Galleleo]

20 years from now, Bioture will be on the history channel as an internet expert!

I still feel that the actual thesis should be shorter and the explanation of the thesis should come in the introduction, including it's sub parts, etc. But that's just my personal opinion. To me it doesn't matter if it's 8 pages or 200, the thesis should be short and to the point, immediately making things clear.

[Summa]

20 years from now, Bioture will be on the history channel as an internet expert!

I still feel that the actual thesis should be shorter and the explanation of the thesis should come in the introduction, including it's sub parts, etc. But that's just my personal opinion. To me it doesn't matter if it's 8 pages or 200, the thesis should be short and to the point, immediately making things clear.

depends on the type of writing

some would argue that thesis writing is poor writing or even that the concept of a thesis should not exist in your paper. i tend to agree on some grounds, if i have gathered the jist of what you're saying by the 7th sentence, then that is poor writing. if you wanna argue this, then sure i am up for it, but i think thesis writing is a joke.

as for bio's response about cyber hermeneutics....you should work on that one a bit more

[Dabram]

I'm with Epi on this one. First I just don't get how someone can think there's ONE cyber-culture. there's far too many different people and cultures using the internet, and they do so in very different ways and with different expectations. how are they somehow all part of this one cyber-culture? that's a lot of examining you put on yourself, or are you going for some great generalizations, seeing you already brought up facebook, I guess it's heading that way? i don't think facebook is the slightest bit important if you look at what the internet has brought forward in information sharing/communication and social networking world wide.

You'll have to acknowledge that for most people in the world the internet is a gateway to information, news and different views from all over the world. information and people they before would've been unable to get in touch with. Internet has made it possible for a very large part of the world to get closer to an almost absolute freedom of press and ideas, it has gone far beyond what pressed text/radio/television have made possible. For the western world this impact might be less visible, because we were already ahead in knowledge and we've been used to having a freedom of speech for quite some time now. For other countries and cultures this is however huge (sometimes still very restricted, yet still greater than ever before).
Imo that positive side is of much greater importance than facebook leading to 'empty social behavior' in the group American teenagers. Who in no offense to those who're really under the spell of facebook, but these people probably aren't the brightest lot to begin with. Just like the people who've since the 50s been making it their day duty to watch soaps and spend their time talking about celebrity gossip.. Without the television or gossip magazine, or facebook, I doubt these people would've spend their time more valuably to bring peace in the middle east..

Anyway what I'm trying to say is, you first need to make clear you're going to be looking at a small group of internet users, basically American teenagers. And of those it's still just a small percentage who not only use facebook/twitter as a social gimmick, but rate these social e-networks as an highly important asset of their social life and of who they are.
Perhaps you can analyze how the internet with it's social e-networking has changed the ways of building social networks compared to prior generations in that group..

Good luck.

ps.
I really don't like psychology