The Effect of Online Societies IRL, Part One

Introduction

            Let’s talk about the Internet.  According to Internet World Statistics, over 2.2 billion people spend some amount of time online.  That is nearly one third of the world’s total population.  The Internet is by far the largest outlet of socialization in the world today.  Online interactions have become more and more complex, moving from the most basic transfer of information through emails and  text-only pages to extremely intricate online communities.  These communities aren’t only in the form of social networks like Facebook; they also exist in other, more specialized areas like business, homegrown artistry, and music. 

            Something strange has happened because of this new tool of socialization.  What originally was merely some intangible construct has, most certainly, begun to leak into the real world.  People with small ideas forge mighty corporate entities that yield millions of dollars in profits and yet don’t actually exist anywhere else but on the Internet. Virtual relationships become real life marriages, artists showcase and sell their work all over the world without ever leaving their house, and revolutions spring up in virtual space that cripple despotic regimes.  The power of the Internet lies in the power of ideas.  It doesn’t matter who your parents were or what college you went to or the size of your paycheck.  This, I believe, is why we flock to virtual space day in and day out.

            The Internet is becoming more than just a collection of ideas on a computer screen.  It is more than our Facebook profiles, our YouTube subscriptions, and our news feeds.  The Internet defines us as a society in powerful ways.  The once intangible becomes a real and in your face culture.  As we spend more and more time online, it’s inevitable that our minds will be shaped by what we experience.  In this paper, we will seek to understand the effects that these online communities have on our offline lives and look at ways that our culture has been forever changed by the Internet.

The Rise of Online Societies

            In his famous work Politics, Aristotle makes the statement that “Man is a social animal”.  It makes complete sense therefore, that once the Internet was established and made available to the public that people would begin to seek out other individuals like themselves and form the first online societies.  Most academics are firmly versed in what constitutes a society or the more intimate community.  The idea is simple enough; coming from the Latin word societas, a society is a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests (Mirriam-Webster).  This definition lends itself well to using the word “society” to identify more specialized groups rather than the large scale usually associated with the term.  With this in mind, I will be using the term “society” throughout this paper instead of “community”, as I feel that the connotations of a society fit more closely with online groups.

            From the definition provided by Mirriam-Webster, we know that societies are formed when people start seeking out others like themselves.  When I find someone who is interested in similar things, I naturally want to associate myself with that person and interact with them using our mutual interests as a catalyst for a deeper relationship.  Would you be surprised if I told you that the same thing regularly happens between people sitting in front of computers that are often hundreds or thousands of miles away from each other?  In this respect, the Internet is a sort of long-distance relationship enabler.  Living in Tinytown, USA doesn’t afford me a wide variety of people to interact with, but joining a social network like Facebook or playing an online game like World of Warcraft might. 

The Purpose.

What is change?

What does it mean?

What does it accomplish?

Why does it happen?

Can it happen differently in different places?

Is change inevitable?

As a recent college graduate with a degree that somewhat resembles a Sociology degree (more on that at a later date), I often find myself asking questions like those you read above.  Of course, the textbooks that we read tell us that change is 'to make a shift from one to the other' (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/change).

I'm dissatisfied with this definition.  It's too clinical, too cold.  But then again, when a sociologist says 'change', it's quite often a loaded term.  As someone versed in the world of liberal arts academia and modern Christian thinking, when I say 'change', I actually mean 'social change'.  Social change is different. It isn't cold and clinical. Social change sets captives free. Social change brings light into the world's darkest places. It finds injustice, confronts it, and forces good to prevail....sometimes. Seemingly more so now than ever, there is a general outcry against injustice and poverty. Students on college campuses all over the world come together to protest against despotic regimes that exist thousands of miles away and aid is sent across the globe from rich to poor in order to stem the constant tide of hunger and disease (Remind me to come back to that in later posts).

I hope that my idealism isn't coming across too obviously.

I digress.  

The title of this post is 'The Purpose', and I suppose that this is about the time when I should actually be getting to that part of my little monologue.  I have written many blog posts on several blogs which all eventually fail due to my lack of interest in keeping up with postings and the simple issue of time. This blog will not suffer the same fate.

With this blog, I really want to share my ideas, insights, questions, and occasional rants about 'change'.  I have what some would consider radical ideas about how to try to eliminate poverty and stabilize certain global regions (don't fret, nothing genocidal).  I am fascinated by popular culture in the developed world and how technology has and continues to shape the way we live.  

But you don't get away that easily!

This isn't meant to be a one-way blog.  I deeply want to foster dialogue about these topics and more, so don't be shy.  This is a safe place for the expression of ideas about social change, where we come from, and where we are going.  I will endeavor to post something new each week to start, and then answer questions in a timely manner.  

I hope to hear from you.

Adam