Introduction: Identity on the Internet
I want to know what we are becoming if the first objects we look upon each day are simulations into which we deploy our virtual selves.
Archives: Expert Predictions
Introduction: Identity on the Internet
As human beings become increasingly intertwined with the technology and with each other via the technology, old distinctions between what is specifically human and specifically technological become more complex. Are we living life on the screen or life in the screen? Our new technologically enmeshed relationships oblige us to ask to what extent we ourselves have become cyborgs, transgressive mixtures of biology, technology, and code. The traditional distance between people and machines has become harder to maintain.
Introduction: Identity on the Internet
The computer culture’s center of gravity has shifted decisively to people who do not think of themselves as programmers. The computer science research community as well as industry pundits maintain that in the near future we can expect to interact with computers by communicating with simulated people on our screens, agents who will help organize our personal and professional lives.
Introduction: Identity on the Internet
In the story of constructing identity in the culture of simulation, experiences on the Internet figure prominently, but these experiences can only be understood as part of a larger cultural context. That context is the story of the eroding boundaries between the real and the virtual, the animate and the inanimate, the unitary and the multiple self, which is occurring both in advanced scientific fields of research and in the patterns of everyday life.
Introduction: Identity on the Internet
We are able to step through the looking glass. We are learning to live in virtual worlds. We may find ourselves alone as we navigate virtual oceans, unravel virtual mysteries, and engineer virtual skyscrapers. But increasingly, when we step through the looking glass, other people are there as well … We have the opportunity to build new kinds of communities, virtual communities in which we participate with people from all over the world, people with whom we converse daily, people with whom we may have fairly intimate relationships but whom we may never physically meet.
Bad Attitude: Business as Usual on the Infobahn
Diversity will maximize profit only by assuring the largest possible customer base. Since when does mass appeal mean the flourishing of free, autonomous, yet interdependent individuals that is the hallmark of a “Jeffersonian democracy?” In his National Press Club speech, the vice president [Al Gore] was closer to the truth: “We’ll turn from consumers into providers. In a way, this change represents a kind of empowerment.” Certainly, access to networks such as the NII is the power issue of our time. Unfortunately, the vice president went on to liken individuals under the “communications revolution” to mere instrumental sources of informational “added value” to the economy, like factory workers. That’s precisely the wrong analogy if networks are to form the basis of an electronic “Jeffersonian democracy.”
Internet is for Marketing; Don’t Waste Effort Trying to Sell, Author Says
The Internet as a business resource “will only get better” … successful Internet use requires professional design skills.
Net Takes Wrong Turn
The bloom is off the road … I don’t think it ever was blossoming … It’s promoted in a way that’s bogus: That it’s a virtual community, that it’s good for business, that it’s good for society, that it’s good for education. Within each one is a grain of truth, but not a beachful of truth … We’ve been sold a bill of goods: that it’s better to have a virtual experience, an experience via computer, rather than a real experience of walking among the trees. I think it’s real worrisome.
Net Takes Wrong Turn
Besides the garbage build-up, there are the oft-heard criticisms that the Internet has become the repository for pornography, hate literature and even advice on how to build a bomb. Censorship of the ‘Net has become a growing rallying cry.
The Killer APP Crew
The whole point of wireless is that it gets around the death hold the regional Bell operating companies have on plain old telephone service. The pen market and personal digital assistant market are problematic because you need your data where you are, but the devices you can carry with you aren’t sufficient. The ability to be less worried about where things are is going to greatly increase the value of the base PC as well as enable peripheral devices.