When I was a boy, if you wanted to buy something, you had to go to a store and talk to a salesperson. If you needed to know movie times, you had to call the movie theater. If you wanted to "chat" with a friend, you called him or her on the telephone or met him in the school halls. Then came the Sony Walkman in the 1980's. The Walkman allowed you to put on a pair of headphones and isolate yourself from human contact. You were in your own island of music. Next came the cell phone in the 1990's. Now you could remove yourself one step further from contact by walking and talking. Then came the Internet, a tool that, ironically, both links and isolates people. On the 'Net, I've ordered products from abroad, found movie times, chatted with strangers, met friends and romanced my fiance. Yet in some ways, the Internet isolates us one step further. Now we can do all sorts of things without ever contacting another human being. Are we becoming insular, as a species?
2007-02-21
23:20:10
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5 answers
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asked by
Anonymous
in
Other - Society & Culture