The internet is not the real world.

Post Reply New Topic

The internet, in many ways, is a new form of entertainment. Replacing the television, and phone, and especially, the real world of challenging in-person contact with other human beings, negotiation of the physical world, being a part of the real-in-person world of people, things, the environment.

Instead, people lay waste looking at a computer screen and keyboard, separate from the world. They almost always use anonymous names, or just their first name. And "speak" to others who are the same. Figments of people. Specters typing words. Rarely do people know each others names, or what they look like.

They go from one website to the other, feverously, like going from gambling table to gambling table. You start at one, and then get tired, and then wonder what's going on at the other, and then go there with a shot of adrenalin, and so on and so on.

The internet is a great pacifier, providing many with the opportunity to get away from the real world and satisfy themselves with this electronic world of video, images, words. It keeps them quiet, and satisfied, like television, games, fast food, entertainment.

The world of the lone person and the computer, sitting there, believing it's the real world. Replacing the real world with their loving computer and the "world wide web".

What a brilliant invention. It provides a world for those who were having difficulty. But it is a delusional world. Look at people's blogs. They believe they are speaking to the world. Look at how they write, as if they are addressing the public. Fairly pathetic, and very unfortunate.

Many people find via the internet a way to master-mind lie about themselves and promote themselves. And a way to profit. And they can reconstruct who they are, their history, and everything else, and lie at length about it all. And hide behind their screen, and simply close website windows as they like. They don't feel accountable to others nor themselves.

Organizations, movements, people, groups, etc, who have their start in the internet should be taken with great caution. These were formerly voiceless people who now prey upon this new communication-medium. The real/true organizations, usually, are the ones that start with real people getting together in person, meeting together in person, traveling to be together in person, discussing ideas in person.

The world of challenges, people, the natural environment, the public, transportation, civil life, the changing of the times ... is missed by the internet-person.

Sadly, many with autism and aspergers lay waste on the internet. They likely could do much more in the real world, but it would be challenging, involve some anxiety, involve working hard to meet people and do this communication with actual people rather than "with people electronically". Here there is the challenged-chance for expression of real emotion, expression of ideas with people, being with people themselves, rather than the stonefaced expression of emotion through words while faceless and nameless.

Last edited by tang on 09 Apr 2008, 11:56 am, edited 5 times in total.

In a word: escapism.

Internet must be dealt with care, I agree. But the fact that I spend much time here doesn't mean that I don't have a life.
Last week I got drunk with friends

to an extent i agree with you. But i do think internet is the real world, because we come on here in the real world. I do have a life though, evem though i come on here. I find talking over the interent easier though, but i do have a life. My friends comment i seem more confident over msn or bebo, than i do in person.

xx

The world hates us, where else can we go if not the internet?

Bull s**t. Was that real enough for you?

Actually, F*CK the real world. I don't need a life!!

thats pure BS, internet is the only place where most of us can go,

You don't think this is challenging? Then you are not taking risks, are not exploring new subjects, are not asking questions, doubting yourself , are not practicing how to express yourself in writing, not learning, not using it actively; are treating it like a TV, which your later remarks do suggest.
Lay waste to what? Not at all separate, but in deep connection with it, closer to it than most people wandering round a mall, or watching TV, or sitting in school. Only sex and child care might be more intimate than the internet can be for people active, creative, self directed, exploring on the net.

Speak for yourself. The only trawling I do is seeking ideas, information, discussion, finding out. Since got the internet two years ago my brain has woken up, is full of new ideas; I am thrilled that all this is available to me at the touch of a few buttons. So if you experience it as a gambling table perhaps that's because that's how you treat it.

Are you pacified? I am not. I am hungrier and more eager and questioning than before. I love this contact with others minds, as if I have been able to go back to university, a far superior one where I can hear some super thinkers speak. And read bits of books from all over, and the latest scientific papers as never before.

See Sherry Turkle. Articles ( viewable on the net) and books on the movement of human life onto the internet. With, as always with new tech, both downsides and upsides. It's happening. This is where more and more people live meaningful lives. Those who think that the "real" world is still "really" offline are deluding themselves/out of touch.

As if people don't do that all the time offline. Do you think people are honest about themselves in the flesh? I think that the same applies to businesses etc offline...

I'm beginning to think that you can't possibly be serious about all this. You're just "winding us up". You don't actually believe any of this. It's so hackneyed and predictable you can't. Or else you are very down on yourself as an aspie on the net.

Last edited by ouinon on 08 Apr 2008, 4:50 pm, edited 5 times in total.

You're simplifying the internet too much. Things (more specificly, people) are no less fake and irrelivant than someone on the telephone is. Countless meet-ups and gigs are organised over the internet. The Chanology protests, which involved thousands of people to come together in real life were started and organised 100% online, plus there are the many other protests and movments that are not internet-based, yet use the internet as a vital peice of communication. And countless meaningfull relationships (as in, meeting in real life) are started over the internet.

Yes there are dangers, such as people taking PC games and too seriously and perverts that use faulse identities to desive people. But overall the internet is by no means a bad or irrelivant thing.

That "internet-person" is a stereotype, one that draws the worst from the internet and ignores/distorts the good and productive things from it.

Being greatly involved over the internet doesn't mean being on Counterstrike 24/7.

Last edited by SDFarsight on 08 Apr 2008, 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oopsie, I see now that was your first post. I just didn't agree with you and thought it a clever way to get my point across.

Most of us are pretty ok, once you get to know us. Welcome to WP.


Gaming, I've gamed for years on line. I met a woman playing EverCrack, err I mean EverQuest, the first one and still play with her on another on line game. Real? Well she felt real when I met her at the airport and gave her a great big hug. And I'm not the huggy kind. We had a wonderful time, myself, her and my wife for the week she stayed. She lives on the West coast and I on the East and I can hardly wait till she comes for another visit. There are people behind these written words and we're very real.

Last edited by postpaleo on 08 Apr 2008, 4:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Internet is more real than most people give it credit for. Virtual currencies are being exchanged for real money, speculators and investors actively invest in virtual commodities. People in other countries speak to their loved ones and see them at the same time through Internet.
It is more real than you think.

Rather negative for a first post on a site for people with aspergers I think.

And to add to that- if the internet was a 'fake' place that is only for 'nerds' and losers, the internet wouldn't have gotten the unprecedented relevance and diversity it has today; it'll only be what it used to be in the 1980's and early 90's.

Obviously you've come here to criticize the site and those who use it. Next you'll be after deaf people telling them how sign language isn't really speaking, and telling blind people how braille isn't really reading.

I'm not sure if you are trying to provoke a debate...something I enjoy and encourage on this "unreal world" or trying to flame a group of people who get a lot of support and friendship from others in the internet world...not real? People can lie and presest a false impression of who they are? I guess you haven't spent to much time in the real world but I don't think it is exempt from these practices. As far as being a waste of time...I learn more on my internet researching then I do listening to some one talk about their opinion on the latest Britney Spears appearance or how "gay" they think so and so on American Idol is...

Personas with autism have sensory issues that the world is not going to accomidate and don't want to hear about. Most of us have auditory processing disorder and Nonverbal communication problems(which incoporates 80% of human off-line communication.) Until you educate yourself about the neurological realitites of being on the spectrum, you can not "judge" out on-line communication as less real/valid/important then face to face communication. How I spend my time on the internet is no less valid or real then how others spend their time socializing face to face.