Is cyberculture truly fostering a new type of community? That is, can
internet users gain as much from sitting at a keyboard as they can from
sitting at the local bar? Most people would agree that watching
television does not promote the kind of interaction and atmosphere that
playing at the park does. But, should parents really be that much
happier when and if their child gives up a few hours of channel surfing
for net cruising? Social interaction in the form of face to face, voice
to voice communication is unmatched by even the most modern inventions.
By sitting in front of a computer screen, you are satisfying the most
basic need for interaction- you are in touch with another person, but at
a very impersonal level. By visiting chat rooms, MUD's, etc., one can
interact with a number of different people but computer correspondence is
not an acceptable substitute for human interaction. Computers posess the
great feature of convinience- you need not wait for someone to get home or
to wait for the beep to leave a message. But again, writing your
roommate email because you are not often in the room at the same time is
not an acceptable alternative to "real" communication.