Is the Internet Affecting the Interpersonal Relationships of Our Society?

Is the Internet Affecting the Interpersonal Relationships of Our Society?

The Internet and the World Wide Web have definitely had an impact on society both positively and negatively. For some people the Internet has reduced personal interaction. For example, the more time some people spend on the Internet, the less time they spend with friends and family. Online shopping and banking are convenient, but encourage people to purchase good and services without interacting with others. The Internet has made it possible for people to work from home by telecommuting. While some people can benefit from telecommuting, it may be too confining for many people. In society today it seems as if we are much more comfortable with shelling out hours upon hours of time producing Myspace or face book pages rather than cutting that time in half by actually interacting with individuals. There is no secret that the technological aspect of the internet is imperative to our society, but has our close interaction with technology/internet caused such a sense of alienation that we have loss touch of our "natural" self? How so?

In the early the 1980's, only 8.2 percent of the U.S population owned computers(U.S Census Bureau, Current Population Survey 1984), but that number today has more than quadrupled with more than 60 percent of the American population having computer access within the home. "However, the advent of new communication technologies such as the Internet has blurred traditional boundaries. We are unsure what it means to "enter the presence of others" (Goffman 1959, p.1) on the Internet...etc" (Walker p.99) this excerpt gives the framework to how our society today operates when it comes to our approach to the Internet. In the early 19th century there were very few technological devices such as the computer, and during this time traditional boundaries such as leaving work at work, eating dinner together as a family, and parents providing answers to educational questions for children were an after-thought. Today technology, such as the Internet, has changed those boundaries. Today almost every household has a computer, which has allowed more opportunities for the endless loads of work to be brought home, which has made "take out" a necessity, which has unfortunately allowed Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues, and Google to be the answer to all of children’s and teenagers educational questions, all changes that have transformed positive interpersonal relationships into negative cases of alienated relationships.

Internet "identities" in general throughout the U.S has been on a substantial rise, with more and more individuals seeking friendships from the Internet, and many family members interacting on the Internet. The most common form of interaction on the Internet comes from personal Internet home pages, Myspace being one of many examples. Myspace is a website where you're able to create your own homepage with detailed/non-detailed information about yourself, while at the same time you can search for friends and family throughout the site. Although the Myspace site allows individuals to express themselves, there is still the lack of face-to-face interaction where any questionable information can be verified, impossible through Internet homepages. Walker expresses the same ideals involving Internet relationships versus interpersonal relationships, stating that "those creating the statements