Monday, December 05, 2005

Generation 'net?

After reading this article about internet addiction, I started thinking about whether people who spend a lot of time on the internet have a problem, or if it's just a sign of the times.

Consider this:

87% of all teens are online
Online shopping is up 24% this season
In October 2005, 20.6 million people used social-networking site MySpace
Teens spend an average of 1 hour and 22 minutes per day using social networking sites (a threefold increase from the year 2000)

Clearly, the internet has embedded itself in our daily lives — and especially in the lives of the 12- to 25-year-old set — in more ways than I could list. But the question remains: is that a bad thing?

The NYTimes article on internet addiction is the first to point out that it might not be:

A report released during the summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers did spend an increasing amount of time online: 51 percent of teenage Internet users are online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000. But the report did not find a withering of social skills. Most teenagers "maintain robust networks of friends," it noted.

The problem, it seems, is not with internet use itself, but in the context of that use as part of one's offline life. As a five-year-old article from Monitor, a publication of the American Psychological Association cautions:

Considered by some to be the ultimate identity tool, the Internet allows us to explore other facets of our personalities. The danger lies in failing to integrate online and offline selves.

All data seems to suggest that the so-called "MySpace Generation" has learned to integrate their online and offline lives so well that sometimes it's difficult to know where one ends and the other begins. "Today's young generation," the Business Week article claims, "largely ignores the difference between online and real-world interactions."

I don't know if I buy that, but &mdash if it's true &mdash what does that mean? Will we ever reach a time when knowing someone in the flesh is no different from knowing someone online? The over eight million LiveJournal users, many of whom pour out their hearts and souls to people they've never met, might say yes, and that time is now.

:: posted at 11:52 PM | link | | | email this post