#60: internet, our social crutch

The Internet is spreading .... in its reach, and in the span of what it enables. Communication, news, research, shopping, missed TV shows... Now it's attempting to compensate for the isolation in modern life.

Social networks such as Friendster and Facebook have blossomed. Granted it connects people otherwise separated by distance. But what about when a bunch of friends currently in the same graduate school and living within a 5 mile radius flock to such a "group" just to keep in touch? Then it's a social phenomenon. My friend and I "poked" and traded one-liners on FB and the mobile phone for two weeks before we managed to meet for lunch yesterday, take a walk, and talk to each other in person and not through a keyboard. We finally had a shared experience.

The NY Times ran an article today based on the US Census Bureau’s 2007 Statistical Abstract. The article backs some common conjectures with definitive and concrete evidence.

• Among adults online last year, 97 million sought news using it, 92 million shopped, 91 million made a travel reservation, 16 million used a networking site, and 13 million created a blog.
• Average time spent with such media per year increased to 3,543 hours last year, up by 6% in 5 years.
• Since 2000, the number of labor unions, fraternities and fan clubs has declined.

Robert Putnam, the renowned Public Policy professor at Harvard comments, "The large master trend here is that over the last hundred years, technology has privatized our leisure time. The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone. That is from many points of view very efficient. I also think it’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don’t share information and values and outlook that we should."

Exactly. I think I said something similar but a lot less profound 2 months ago.