I have chosen to do my blog post on the mob and the internet's effect on people who are behind their computer screens using it. While this focuses on misbehavior and cruelty, I'm also going to explore the many other side effects that our connectivity brings in today's world.
There are many unintended effects from our constant need to be connected and from society's shift to more reliance on the internet. As is mentioned in Frontline many times, the internet has really cut people's attention spans and abilities to do things that really take time. It was said in the documentary that instead of "writing essays, they write paragraphs" talking about the kids of today that have a heavy reliance on the internet. The paragraph statement basically means that instead of writing an essay that is all connected, each paragraph is separate and does not flow into the next. We seem to be finding shortcuts for everything since the internet is so instant, we figure that everything else in life must be as well. One student from Chatham High School in New Jersey talks in the documentary about how he no longer reads books and couldn't remember the last time he did. I believe that many students can also say that this is true for themselves, and I'm also sure that Sparknotes and similar websites have enjoyed a large rise in popularity and usage since we have become so reliant on the internet.
I found an article written in 2002 by BBC News entitled "Turning into digital goldfish", and I can only assume that now that we are even more connected than in 2002, it has only gotten worse. The article can be summed up by using a quotation that they cite at the beginning of the article from Ted Selker, who is an expert in the online equivalent of body language at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a school that was mentioned very much in the Frontline documentary. He says that "Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things. If we spend our time flitting from one thing to another on the web, we can get into a habit of not concentrating," and we can easily see that this is true. If one needs an example of how our attention spans have been shortened, they can simply try to write an essay on the computer and see how fast they end up looking at something completely random and irrelevant.
A second, and main unintended effect to be discussed by our connectivity is cyber-bullying. Our connectivity, because it can be completely anonymous, entitles many with a new sense of power that they can do or say whatever they want without worrying about consequences because they are anonymous. It is easy to see that many people feel invincible behind a screen and feel comfortable cyber-bullying, but the internet can also be used as a tool to bully someone in person.
Just today, September 30th, a body was found in the Hudson River. The body was of a freshman student from Rutgers University who committed suicide after two bullies secretly filmed him and put it on the internet. This is eye opening as we all know how far the internet can reach and how many people can see anything that is posted on it. The article about this tragedy can be found here, where the Governor of New Jersey even expresses shock and sadness.
Just today, September 30th, a body was found in the Hudson River. The body was of a freshman student from Rutgers University who committed suicide after two bullies secretly filmed him and put it on the internet. This is eye opening as we all know how far the internet can reach and how many people can see anything that is posted on it. The article about this tragedy can be found here, where the Governor of New Jersey even expresses shock and sadness.
However, we must also focus on actual cyber-bullying, where people completely hide behind their computer screens and feel invincible because of the amount of anonymity that the internet gives someone. According to www.cyberbullying.org, cyber-bullying is defined as the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others. The possibility for mediums that can be used to bully anonymously are endless on the internet and include email, instant messaging, chat rooms, message boards, and websites. Unfortunately, we can't really say that this is unexpected. With all of the anger that people have built up in society with no real way to release it, of course they would come somewhere where they can be anonymous to release it all. Unfortunately, it does make sense.
This release of anger over the internet is sort of a vicious cycle, because it causes more anger that has to get released somewhere, which will most likely be on the internet again, and the cycle repeats. I believe that it is both a result and a cause. It is a very prevalent topic in the world today, so this anger does reach a lot of people. According to research done by the website www.cyberbullying.us, 20.8% of kids have been cyber-bullied, and even more surprising, 14.3% have received mean or hurtful comments online in the past 30 days. This is an overwhelming statistic and really shows that cyber-bullying is a problem. Writing this blog post really opened my eyes personally to cyber-bullying by looking at the statistics and the amount of information you can find online about it after a simple search, but what opened my eyes the most was the effect that it has on people. While many may recycle this anger and post it right back onto the internet, it can have more serious effects such as the effects on the Rutgers freshman earlier today. It's shocking to think that people can sleep at night after doing things like this, and I believe that while it can never be stopped, it should be fought against and people should be more educated about it, because many older people don't even know that it exists.
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