Today I read an article titled “Don’t Dismiss Online Relationships as Fantasy” by Regina Lynn. This article caught my attention because I do view online relationships as surreal. In some of my past blogs I wrote about how we need to have face-to-face and physical contact and that online relationships are bizarre. So to acquire some information from the other side of the story, I stuck with this editorial.

It starts off with this freaky story about a man and a woman who both lie about their age but find each other online. He becomes jealous because she was also seeing his co-worker online and shot the guy dead in a parking lot. Well that story right away caught my attention. Lynn then goes into discussion about how he had a real relationship that was based on power and manipulation (trying to keep other men off his woman) and ended in a real life tragedy. I can understand her point of view – makes sense.

Another part of the article that caught my eye was the common thread that Lynn observed in these real life online stories and it was “that people get deeply involved in online relationships.” This is definitely true; going back to class when we discussed about that girl who killed herself because a boy (or so she thought) was making fun of her and calling her terrible names online. I hear about it more and more that people are becoming very attached to their computers and online relationships.

My favorite quote from this article is from Cory Silverberg, a sex educator. He notes on his blog that “maybe we want to pretend that what happens online stays online because so often, we want it to.” A lot of individuals who have had or are having online relationships really want to keep it hush-hush because of the fact that online dating or online relationships still are not in the norm. However, it is rapidly making its way up the ladder.

This article absolutely made me change my mind on how I view online relationships. If you, like me, believed that online relationships are fantasy, read this article real quick. It makes you think.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/09/sexdrive_0907

Iphone

All this week, I have been thinking on what I am going to blog about. When we watched “You Got Mail” it made me feel all romantic and sappy afterwards, but it was funny to see the old AOL screen and hear the connecting noises. I kind of missed it in a way. During the movie, I saw someone pull out their iphone and I immediately giggled because of this skit I saw on MADTV.

It is about a talk show host who introduces the maker of the iphone and the audience starts going insane. As soon as he steps on stage, the audience falls silent and he starts talking about the new iphone and all of its new features. He speaks to it and says “iphone, on.” The audience once again goes crazy. Then after every feature he says that the iphone has, the audience continues to scream and one of the audience members actually stands up and says “I am so happy I didn’t kill myself yesterday!” The iphone guy continues saying that it is an MP3 player, a wide screen ipod, a break through internet device and has scrolling capabilities. Then the audience takes a sudden turn, starts screaming that it is too much, and calling the iphone guy an i-witch. He then answers back with “no need to be afraid – its just new technology.” The crowd grows wild and he screams “SILENCE!” while a big bash of thunder and lighting hit the stage; he then shouts out that he was going to offer them eternal life. A woman stands up and cries out “that was on the iphone?” And he replies with “yes but you didn’t let me get that far down! But it’s too late now! You made a powerful enemy today….iphone! Disappear me!” And he is gone in cloud of smoke and the audience is shocked and doesn’t know what to do.

This is comical for a variety and obvious reasons. It is amazing how we, as a society, put technology on a pedestal. As soon as a new gadget comes out we rave about and have to have it. But if something goes wrong with it, we are quick to point out its flaws and tell all our friends what is wrong with it. In reality, look how far we have come in just phones – look back to when cell phones we not even heard of. Now we get frustrated if the screen or keys are frozen or stuck even though we probably dropped the phone a million times.

Even though this skit was meant to be hilarious and it was, it did open my eyes to how we take technology for granted.

MTV

Earlier in the summer I watched an episode of True Life on MTV called “I live another life on the web.” It was a documentary that followed three girls for about a couple months and how they lived their life…on the web. It seemed like that was the only life that they had! The one girl was a part of a virtual world and would sing and play her guitar in front of thousands of people on the web, but could not perform in real life. Another one used sexual pictures of herself to meet guys on the internet, and the other would not leave the house and just talk to people online all day because she was too afraid of how real society would view her because of her weight.

As I continued to watch this, all I could think about is how pathetic I thought they were. I understand that we, as a society, need to have communications with other people through the internet and there are definitely benefits to these means of communication; but to live your life solely on the web and have hardly any face-to-face contact with your friends, neighbors, or even strangers just rubs me the wrong way. I feel that we need to have physical contact with the world even if it does start through the web.

In class as we were filling out those papers on what we look for in a significant other, I was thinking if I could start a relationship with someone through the internet. I do not think I could because how he interacts with me and others in person is a big factor when deciding to become intimate with him.

The only girl that I could empathize for was the one who could not perform in front of people in real life. Being a theatre major, I see stage fright all the time and I am very supportive of those who cannot perform or even speak for that matter in front of a crowd.

All in all, the show kind of annoyed me with how the girls could not live a normal life and thought they could only gain acceptation by using the web. It reminds me of how hookers look for love through sex. It is not that satisfying.

Buffy and the Computer Demon

Watching this episode in class was actually humorous to me because the library professor kind of reminded me of my father. My dad DID NOT want the Internet in his house because all he ever heard about was how bad the Internet was and how much trouble you could get into. And of course he didn't want his daughter being abducted because that is all he thinks about. However, now he is an eBay feign!

I like the way the episode showed contrasts between those who like the Internet and those who despise it. Although it is an older show, I'm not sure how many people are out there who still imply that the Internet is a demon (pun intended).

It is scary the way anyone can hide behind a mask on the interent. When I was in middle school, I know my group of friends and I would talk to boys (or so we thought) on AIM and tell them that we were models or famous singers and we lived in Hollywood and partied all the time with celebrities. Sounds funny I know, but on the Internet we could be who we wanted to be without judgement.

In a nutshell, I believe that this episode sent out the message that yes the Internet is growing stronger and we are becoming more dependent on it, but we need to be careful of who we meet and what we say; especially when it comes to the younger generations.