A good account of Internet and its use
Mar 30, 1997 10:30 PM
by M K Ramadoss
The following is extracted from Time Daily. And may interest some.
..doss
========================================================
The Power of
Virtual
Community
On the Web, the
lines can blur
between the normal
and the fringe
In the onslaught of pop psychology that has followed the
grim discoveries at Rancho Santa Fe, so-called mind
control experts have speculated that the fault somehow lay
in the tech world, that something about the Web explained
Heaven's Gate and the isolation of its members from the
cushioning norms of society. Not true. The cult had been
around for 22 years, and had seen better days. Most of its
members were Web novices at best. Yet in some ways,
the Web was made for groups like this. For it is not the
culture of the Internet, but its utility as a two-way means
of communication that attracts and connects militias, hate
groups and wacky fringe movements. The profoundly
American, truly revolutionary character of the Internet is
fundamentally egalitarian. Everyone can take the stage
online, even the nuts. But as the initial reaction to the
cult's
Web connection proved once again, the wild, unfiltered
nature of the Internet presents a difficult quandry for the
freedom-loving American society, particularly for parents.
Like the content of television, newspapers, magazines,
books and radio, the messages on the Internet range from
the profound to the outrageous. But the Net makes it
cheaper and easier than most mainstream-dominated
media to broadcast your message to a large potential
audience. Anyone can create web pages. Most Internet
service providers and online services offer customers
server space to publish their efforts on the Net. Whether
anyone will look at them is another question. The radical
difference between the Internet and other mass media is
that while anyone can make a bid for attention at http
something or other, there is no central audience regularly
tuning to channel 2 or 4 or 7 -- no easy way to command
major market share. If websites were channels, there
would be tens of millions of them on the Net, which helps
explain why every muffler shop, pizzeria and hardware
store seems to have one, as well as every crank. And that
is precisely what gives parents pause when they wonder
what strange ideas and people their children may
encounter on the electronic frontier.
As a readily accessible soapbox, the Net attracts the
same groups that have always tacked pamphlets on
grocery store and college bulletin boards and placed tiny
ads in the backs of journals to get the word out. As
disturbing as the quasi-philosophical blather on the
Heaven's Gate website may be, it never got much
attention until the networks and Internet publishers
(including Pathfinder) sought it out as legitimate news in
the wake of the deaths. As far as anyone has been able to
determine, the Heaven's Gate cult used the Net mainly to
memorialize itself, or to generate freelance income by
producing commercial web pages for local firms. But a
growing number of other cults and splinter groups use the
Net to try to recruit new members, just as advertisers use
the Net to sell products to consumers. Unlike TV or
radio, the Net offers a very personal way to contact the
audience. Some people are particularly vulnerable to email
and chatroom conversations with folks they may meet in
the intimate setting of the computer screen in their own
den or bedroom.
In that sense, the Net offers the same sort of intrusive
contact with people in their homes that has made
telemarketing a multibillion-dollar business. Just as lonely
people often are vulnerable to pitchmen who call them at
home, some maladjusted or immature people are
unusually receptive to online conversations with strangers
or to information that is different than what they see
around them in their communities. The communication and
the ideas can feel more personal or important than they
are. While most people are mature enough to ignore the
nuts or the nosy people and use this rich medium for
communicating with their friends or seeking out
information, children may not be. For parents who worry
that their children may meet dangerous strangers amid the
enormous information riches on the Net, the best advice is
that any child who is not old enough to go to the Mall
alone will need some guidance when wandering the
Internet. Computers are the most valuable source of free
education since the library. But they are not baby-sitters.
The Internet, the most powerful communications tool of
this generation, was never designed for that.
-- Janice Castro
[Back to Top]
Theosophy World:
Dedicated to the Theosophical Philosophy and its Practical Application
