my Ph.D dissertation topic

[PH]

@ op: how's the weather up there on your high horse

[Bioture]

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

Well the point of the generalization is actually to point at the fundamental difference between interacting with cyberspace as opposed to, say, the telephone. The same argument is made in the Victorian Internet, as well as Frontline's Digital Nation. The dissertation is not to segregate usergroups, but to force an examination into the individual. For example, why is it that I can joke about making sperm omelets in telcat's thread when it's something I would absolutely NOT do in my day to day life?

I'm also not saying the internet is all bad, but it is destroying the way basic communication is being done. We use the power of groupthink (i.e. get obama in office, jihad, haiti) to great effect, but fail to see the spontaneousness and brevity of these thoughts. So obviously there are consequences to this - the question is what is DIFFERENT? Is it an addiction to secondary online personas? Is it just the way things are? Or is it because there are some fundamentals of humanity that we've overlooked when we started making technology on the basis that people can generally control themselves?

Just a few questions to explore. I currently do not have a solution, but I'm hoping to come up with one!

[Galleleo]

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.

What exactly do you mean?

(I might be confused by usage of the word thesis, as I'm currently doing my masterthesis, which is the entire paper as opposed to thesis being the sentence that describes what you research in your paper

[Ilya]

dont worry about it, gal

[Summa]

Well the point of the generalization is actually to point at the fundamental difference between interacting with cyberspace as opposed to, say, the telephone. The same argument is made in the Victorian Internet, as well as Frontline's Digital Nation. The dissertation is not to segregate usergroups, but to force an examination into the individual. For example, why is it that I can joke about making sperm omelets in telcat's thread when it's something I would absolutely NOT do in my day to day life?

I'm also not saying the internet is all bad, but it is destroying the way basic communication is being done. We use the power of groupthink (i.e. get obama in office, jihad, haiti) to great effect, but fail to see the spontaneousness and brevity of these thoughts. So obviously there are consequences to this - the question is what is DIFFERENT? Is it an addiction to secondary online personas? Is it just the way things are? Or is it because there are some fundamentals of humanity that we've overlooked when we started making technology on the basis that people can generally control themselves?

Just a few questions to explore. I currently do not have a solution, but I'm hoping to come up with one!

Now for your first paragraph I tend to follow and agree. Essentially there is no accountability on the internet unlike in society where there are laws and social expectations/social contracts that in essence prohibit you from committing certain acts. When you lift what holds people accountable, you allow them to enter into a world where they can choose who they want to be and hide behind an anonymous guise. Now what you say after that is a bit more tentative (you actually said this earlier, not in this post). You say that most people tend to revert to being bastard coated bastards with bastard filling when this accountability structure is lifted. I don't tend to agree with that for a variety of reasons mainly on the ground that most is far too much and I think the bastards are sequestered into a specific community.

Now I am going to play counter-puncher on your 2nd paragraph. Who are you to claim that communication has degraded? How do you know it isn't simply evolving. We speak on the internet far more efficiently, and use acronyms to consolidate sentences. Meems unite world citizens around common causes, perhaps not always with the best intentions. And in the end, if you can somehow prove some form of quid pro quo relationship between internet users and drops in education or communication skills; then so what? They can communicate in the realm of society which they value the most, how do you plan on telling American citizens who are granted freedom on the internet that they can't have freedom? Especially when it has such a powerful uniting force. (sorry for the discombobulation...not thinking well right now)

@gall: we are using the word differently....thesis-based writing is an American standard of writing in high school and early college, and it is essentially a giant pile of donkey shit imo

[saetep]

"Now for your first paragraph I tend to follow and agree. Essentially there is no accountability on the internet unlike in society where there are laws and social expectations/social contracts that in essence prohibit you from committing certain acts. When you lift what holds people accountable, you allow them to enter into a world where they can choose who they want to be and hide behind an anonymous guise."

There are laws and social expectations/contracts on the internet as well. Look up child pornography on google and enjoy the FBI knocking on your door. Send an e-mail that shows someone how to make an IED and the same will happen. Even something as small as making racist comments on this forum or on continuum and you can enjoy your ban. Sure, there is a certain degree of anonymity which lets people act in certain ways, but to say there is no accountability isn't true.

[Guest]

http://www.wimp.com/michaelwesch/


watch that bioture, it is closely related to your topic!

[MirrorriM]

I think this is an interesting thesis but I have to side with epi/bram/summa. Despite reiterating what they've already said, I some questions:

-It sounds like these "bastard personae" are coming from specific aspects of the anonymous internet, where behaviors like acting like a jerk are more generally accepted (video games, youtube, gossip blogs, etc). But I know of plenty of other sites that foster positive, well-mannered discussions. Are you thinking of studying the difference? I think it would be interesting to know what makes one site have positive users while another have negative users, since both provide a mask of anonymity.

-The idea above relates to your statement that the internet is destroying communication, because of the "spontaneousness and brevity." This reminds me of twitter, but what about all the blogs written by regular old people that offer well-written, thought-provoking pieces? While the internet has spawned superficial information, it's also spawned millions of well-written blogs/online papers/even information aggregates like digg.com.

To comment on summa's point about the degradation of communication, I believe he has a point. My professors would point out that every major communication device invented was, at first, demonized for "destroying" how we interact with people. When many can argue it's only evolved and expanded how we communicate. Same goes for the English language.

I'd also argue that while many people can create their own anonymous identity, many people also choose to behave exactly how they would in real life (see personal blogs or special interest forums, etc). Now there is no way to prove any of this, but it's still worth exploring.

Overall, though, I think it's a great topic. Definitely a lot to discuss.

[Epinephrine]

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.



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.

I think overall, you will be heading into trouble if you overgeneralize too much.

Even in Trench Wars, people aren't all jerks who have zero inhibition. The fact that you can have a thread like this and have intelligent and civilized replies to your topic proves that the internet can be a positive thing.

The fact is, if there is any real shift in communication offered via the internet, it is that we are able to easier enter into a community while living in the big anonymous world. Yes that's right, I'm actually arguing the inverse of what you're saying.

The fact is in the past 100 years as humans have went from living in predominately small towns to large cities, people have been able to live lives which are increasingly anonymous. The larger the city, the more anonymous it is, and the less 'community' there is as well. In the very largest cities you can basically live a life so separate from everyone else that people really are doing whatever they want without anyone finding out. As an example, one only needs to look at Tokyo, where basically any strange hobby one person may have, there are probably 10 stores dedicated to that.

They used to say that with the creation of the suburbs in America, and with car travel making it so that people in the same neighbourhood saw eachother less and less, local clubs were where people came to meet eachother. Stuff like the boy scouts, or for adult men the lodges were highly popular in the 50s and 60s.

With the internet, such clubs are increasingly becoming obsolete, because we're able to form our own virtual communities and share interests. Does this mean that we are increasingly alone? Hardly. Even in Subspace, many of us have met other players from the game (I've met people from all over the world while traveling the world from this game for instance).

Do community standards disappear just because we're anonymous? Hardly. As stated, even in this game we have community standards. And just as in the old paradigm of the small town where everyone knew eachother and knew what was going on, status updates, and internet histories allow those within the community to easily keep tabs on eachother. Online reputation is key. You can choose to act like as much of an ass as you want, but really it doesn't matter because people will just ignore you.

If anything the internet has increased communication because we are no longer constrained by the physical look of someone or how they look. Only the content of their writing, or in Trench Wars of their gameplay ability is what matters. You could have no legs and can't leave your house because of that but people will still listen to you if you have someone interesting to say. I'd say this is actually more enlightened than the past.


Either way, you can argue it both ways. And it is because of that I think that you will find it very hard to write any sort of good thesis to prove the point you have. Better maybe to compare and contrast, or use specific groups or specific examples, rather than overgeneralizing your topic and arguing one side of a multi-sided argument as if the other sides don't exist.

[Galleleo]

If I look at a social networking site, such as facebook, I would say that there are the same social contracts in place as there are when you're at your university. At least for me, I have only friends that I actually know on my facebook, so if I were to act like an asshole on there, my real life friends would see that and the same would happen if I were to act like an asshole infront of them.

I would say that the only real anonymous behaviour happens on sites such as 4chan and youtube where you can create accounts and do stupid shit without anyone ever knowing it is you. But on sites like facebook, it's kinda useless being on there if you have no "friends"

[Nockm]

lol

[gran guerrero]

lol

man it must be my Aryan ancestral genes reacting deep within me when I immediately pick out Adolf and Hitler in that word jumble

[Bioture]

-The idea above relates to your statement that the internet is destroying communication, because of the "spontaneousness and brevity." This reminds me of twitter, but what about all the blogs written by regular old people that offer well-written, thought-provoking pieces? While the internet has spawned superficial information, it's also spawned millions of well-written blogs/online papers/even information aggregates like digg.com.

Well the thing is it isn't the internet that's destroying communication. This is where it gets hard for me to explain without pointing fingers and having people feel like they're "bad." It's not the technology that's bad, but the people who exploit the technology. Twitter is a great piece of technology, but we simply choose to use it to broadcast our statuses and to regurgitate what other people have tweeted. And then theres the question of where do we get our information nowadays? Do you still trust the news? What about the blogosphere? Etc.

[Bioture]

There are laws and social expectations/contracts on the internet as well. Look up child pornography on google and enjoy the FBI knocking on your door. Send an e-mail that shows someone how to make an IED and the same will happen. Even something as small as making racist comments on this forum or on continuum and you can enjoy your ban. Sure, there is a certain degree of anonymity which lets people act in certain ways, but to say there is no accountability isn't true.

Very true. Now let's move to Nigeria. We're at an internet cafe. Do you think the FBI will show up there? What about Cambodia, Iran, and China? The issue of nation states controlling online activity is another monster on its own!

And as per the forum ban, what is the real consequence to you being racist on the forum? Is it the ban? Or is it the fact that everyone has racist tendencies?

[D1st0rt]

if you ever give a presentation on this, one of your slides needs to be the greater fuckwad theory from penny arcade