Assessment 3 - Final Essay - Accurate Portrayals of the Net

With the reading and analysis of both Marc Prensky’s The Emerging Online Life Of The Digital Native alongside Dave Weinberger’s A New World - two articles that attempt to introduce, highlight, characterise, define and reveal new and interesting tendencies, attitudes, behaviours and oddities of internet users and their online lives – together with what I believe are my broad and extensive experiences using the internet, I will comment systematically upon the validity of the various interpretations made by both authors.

Both Marc Prensky and Dave Weinberger are saying similar things. In Prensky’s The Emerging Online Life Of The Digital Native, the text is heavily structured and academic – his ideas are argued from two separate viewpoints: the digital natives (those familiar with the internet and new digital technologies) and the digital immigrants (those who are unfamiliar, and find the technology challenging) and he uses these two demographics to compare and contrast his points to support his arguments. Weinberger’s A New World, which is the first chapter from his book Small Pieces Loosely Joined, is a loosely structured, informal and creative piece that relies on personal anecdotes and anomalies to make his arguments. Despite their differences, they both tend to raise the same points and share similar insights (most of which I agree with) about the internet revolutionising the way humans organise and run their lives each proving that “we are moving from a world of Internet wizards to a world of ordinary people routinely using the Internet as an embedded part of [our] lives.” (Haythornthwaite and Wellman, 2002).

One of the prime arguments both authors raise concerns the way the internet has radically changed the way humans communicate. Prensky argues that emails “quickly supplanted” traditional letters and “long-distance communication went from being expensive to be essentially free”. Similarly, Weinberger commented on the “distanceless of the Web” now that email, chat and web forums gap the measurable and geographical space between people. And according to a number of studies, “90 percent of all internet users claim to be emailers” (Nie and Erbring, 2002); “almost all web surf” and that In September 2001, “Internet users spent an average of 10 hours and 19 minutes online” (Haythornthwaite and Wellman, 2002) – these facts and the argument held by both Weinberger and Prensky corroborate my experiences of the radical changes in communication, and online behaviour the internet has provided. A change that is definite and irrefutable.

There is an interesting issue raised by Weinberger on whether the internet is making us more or less social. This question has an answer that seems to undermine itself. It is reported that “the more time people spend using the Internet, the more they lose contact with their social environment” (Nie and Erbring, 2002). And yet, Weinberger in referencing a New York Times article titled ‘Who Says Surfers Are Antisocial?’ argues instead that “internet users increased their contact with others”. Yes, the internet makes you less social physically, but it’s also a doorway to meeting new people and to socialising in different ways. “As more youth log on to the Internet, we can expect that more of their friends do too” (Gross, 2004). Based on my experiences, this observation, along with Weinberger’s, is correct. My internet activities have led me onto joining both a cricket team and a motorcycle club. This, Prensky labels is called “online meeting”. It is an increasing social phenomenon and something I myself, have participated in. So while one can say I’ve isolated myself from typical human interaction by using the internet, it has conversely - and against many peoples hypotheses - led me onto meeting more people and thus increasing my social life.

Both Prensky and Weinberger raise a number of interrelated points about the issues of identity; which bring about the concepts of anonymity, trying on other personalities, lookism and maintaining identity even in the “faceless mass” of the public. With the beginning of the internet, one of the most popularised concepts was the idea of having a “voice”, “a say”: being influential. Although there are some examples of this to be true, one’s voice has proven less influential a concept as what was initially considered, though still an intrinsic part of what makes the internet work. A lot of the time, these “voices” are anonymous. Weinberger begins A New World discussing the legalities surrounding identity (or the identities of such voices) and the notions behind using multiple or additional identities. He uses the example of Michael Ian Campbell, who received jail time for essentially “trying on a role” by falsely threatening another student - who was at the time attending the recently traumatised Columbine High School - of an additional school shooting massacre. Although Weinberger focuses on a negative example of identity experimentation, a study by McKenna and Bargh in the year 2000 on the affect the internet has on identity, conversely argues “The Internet provides the opportunity for individuals to engage in greater identity and role construction than is possible in the non-Internet world.” I acknowledge people use the internet to experiment with identity, and even though Weinberger doesn't typify internet users by his example of Michael Ian Campbell, I wouldn’t conclude identity experimentation or “trying on a role” as necessarily a bad thing (just that it can be). I prefer to accept that the internet instead allows us the opportunity and freedom to build upon and develop our identity positively.

Prensky - with much insight - introduces the concept of “lookism”: that online, you are not judged by appearance, but by what you produce. “The old barriers of sexism, ageism, and racism are not present, since you can't see the person to whom you're ‘speaking’. You get to know the person without preconceived notions about what you THINK he is going to say, based on visual prejudices you may have, no matter how innocent.” (Polly, 1992) It is a concept hardly considered by users but integral nonetheless. Although shirking the term, this correlates with Weinberger’s observations on buying and selling with eBay, and that the most interesting point - and one I can vouch as true - that irrespective of a person’s appearance, whether the person is good or bad, irrespective of their religious or political views or their ethnicity; as long as they act with honour with their eBay transactions, nothing else is important.

To finish, it’s become quite obvious that at this point I agree with the majority of both Prensky and Weinberger’s portrayals of internet users; their respective attitudes and behaviours. Their unique insights, thorough observations and accurate deductions ring true not just with me, but with anyone who uses the digital technologies and the internet, I’m sure.

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References:

1. Polly, Jean Armour. (1992). Surfing The Internet: an Introduction.Version 2.0.2. 94pp.

2. Gross, Elisheva F. (2004). Adolescent Internet use: What we expect, what teens report. Applied Developmental Psychology 25. 633–649pp.

3. Haythornthwaite, C and Wellman, B. (2002). The Internet In Everyday Life: An Introduction. Edited by Barry Wellman & Caroline Haythornthwaite, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Fall 2002 55pp.

4. Nie, Norman H. and Erbring, Lutz. (2002). Internet and Society: A Preliminary Report. IT & SOCIETY, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1, SUMMER 2002, PP. 275-283.

5. McKenna, Katelyn Y. A. and Bargh, John A. (2000) Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review. Vol. 4, No. 1, 57–75.