Does the Internet Foster Vibrant Online Communities - Essay Example

Community is a term used to refer to a group of people who interact with each other in a particular area. The word is used is taken from the Latin word which means group. Now a day internet is the widest media used for communication and it has a number of community-based websites. These websites like Facebook and MySpace became popular as online community webs in a short period of time. People like these websites as they can share their ideas with their friends and with the world, they can upload and comment on the photos and share these with their friends and other persons. But are these web online communities are helping people to be close to each other or these community websites making people anonymous.

Today we use the internet a lot. Many people utilize most of their time on the internet using Facebook or MySpace or any other such website. It has been found that people mostly the youth spend most of their time using the internet rather than watching television or doing other things (Gale).In the essay “Study rates online habits” Thomas gale writes that the rate of reading newspapers, magazines, listening to the radio, and watching TV is declined with the rapid increase in the usage of internet. He says that only 20 percent people read magazines and 15 percent read newspaper but 51 percent people spend more than 10 hours on the internet (Gale).

On the internet, there is no way to detect a lie. Susan Youngwood in the article “Networking by the ‘Book’: Vt. college students cull, gather friends on facebook.com” quotes Stone that “there is no way to determine truth from fiction on Facebook (Youngwood 2006). You can write whatever you want, put whatever picture you want. The picture doesn't even have to be of you.… Photoshop,” he says, “is a wonderful thing”. That is the reason that Susan says that it is impossible for the administration to look into the profile and make decisions about any student. Students use the internet and social networking sites a lot (Youngwood 2006). They share their ideas and other such things. In the same article, Susan Youngwood quotes Greg stone says that the students suppose that they are anonymous and states “Even though they say very, very, very, very private things, they do it because … they don't have to look someone in the eye. We're really concerned about them understanding that." So the social network of students on the internet is not helpful for the administration to detect fiction (Youngwood 2006).

Now the youth ranging from 14 to 24 years old don’t know that who should be their heroes. Being busy in the network sites the young generation has not enough time to interact with their family in a proper manner. They unwillingly ignore their families and spend most of their time on the web. In the essay “Computers Will Not Significantly Transform Society” Clifford Stoll discourages the computer and networks and has the opinion that it is impossible for a person to enjoy more on a computer screen rather than a live concert. He says that a meeting over a coffee is incomparable with a chat on the internet and the term cybersex can never make a person such happy that a real can (Stoll). The vital characteristics of human interaction are neglected uncompromisingly.
The social network sites, on the one hand, prove ease of communication and interaction among the people but on the other hand, the online communities are devaluing the major interaction aspects. Read More