Do you care about other people in the internet?

Question

I mean especially the ones that have been in Yahoo for a long time, reading the questions and answers from contacts. Don't you care about them as people? Or you just see them like talking avatars? How personal you feel about the people in the other side of the computer as a fellow being?

Answer 1

I'd rather answer this question in broader terms than the ones you have set.

I've been using the net actively since 1988, well before the www was mainstream, and where usenet boards and telnet were the main means of information exchange within the academic community. At this time the web was more formal, as it was general much more topic driven between peers. There was never any doubt that humans were on the other end of text messages paradoxical because most communication was very formal. Netiquette was in its infancy and most postings resembled written letters.

As the scope and availability of the internet evolved, I began to use chat clients extensively, from around the early and mid 1990s where I talked to and met numerous people in real life. The net was still very much the province of early adapter, technophiles, academics, people accessing information from work. On the whole the quality of chat was far far better than it has been in this millenium.

During the late 1990s to early 2000 the quality of chat in general declined steeply as it was adopted by far wider audiences, rooms were flooded with advertisements, the usual porn bot spam, and basically, what was a very lively and vibrant community disolved into small insular cliques and spam in almost all forms. Many of the larger and better providers collapsed because they lost subscribers, were hit by the burst of the dot com bubble, or fell prey public fears over internet safety.

Over the last few years formats such as this have begun gaining in popularity, combining some of the better elements of newsgroups and bulletin boards with a format, yet they are not so conducive to forming human to human communication as chats or even blogs.

Where people post interesting views or stuff that resonates for me, I will often drop a short email, or make a comment. I'm well aware everyone is human, but just like a trip through a shopping mall - I'm aware everyone there is human too. I have a general level of compassion, which often switches off when someone annoys me, but I rarely expend the effort to keep track of annoyances anyway.

I would say that most people I am emailing or IMing from YA fall into acquaintance category. One or two are friends, but I haven't been posting here all that long. I have established friendships that have persisted well over a decade from chat days.

Answer 2

Hmm - not in the least surprised Carolyn. The team don't seem to study actual content and I don't know whether it's due to idleness or incompetence. Touz might well be right about the 'wrong section' point and such a Q gets zapped automatically without any 'thought'. I've only reported self-awarding Multis and the Streaming ads which seem to continue regardless. Being IT illiterate I don't know how to set up additional accounts - or why this can't be stopped but assume a Multi can report twice and get Qs deleted quite easily, without proper moderation. But Nil desperandum m'dear - try leading with the Footie Qs instead of FQs. And/or use As to slip in any such points - we must never let the bad guys win. I haven't been watching the U21s but gather the boys (!) done good and we must of course believe they'll win. The EPL is such a physical league it's difficult for the younger ones to break into it - so it's good to think we're making progress in the Euros.

Answer 3

I used to work at a support website and really got close to a lot of people there to the point that we talk on the phone and have daily contact on line. So, I do see people on Yahoo as real people and not just talking avatars--love that term. I have no doubt that many people are being honest in their questions and answers here at YQ&A which makes it easy to get to know them and care about them. But the trolls here make it harder to network with the people you do want to get to know better off the site.

Answer 4

I am an Atheist and I care about the people behind the avatars, we are all human. I give the same answers on here as I would give to their faces, I try to treat members with respect, but it is hard to respect some, like the one that just posted a question stating that Atheists are like Muslims and don't help at national disasters; tsunami's. this guy said he was speaking for the entire western world as a christian!? such arrogance and ignorance.

Answer 5

Yes. I care about some people in YA and talk to some of them. I hope I can meet a few people I know and like in here in real life some day.

I often care about some of the people who ask some questions in Women's Health and hope they are ok. I really care and feel very close with the friends I met in YA who also lost their moms.

Some people just come through the screen as being very good and special people and they are much more than some idiot with no life who comes here to spew crap because of their immaturity and emotional problems.

Answer 6

It depends, the person you could be fantacizing them to be like, could be a completely different story. With that being written, I need to point out that some can be caring, especially when they give you thumbs up, not thumbs down, and pick your answer as best answer when you feel that it is the most awesome answer up there. I read a girls poetry on here, and I think poetry really depicts the person, assuming it is their poetry.

Answer 7

We're all real humans, so of course I care. I care enough to get passionate over defending someone who is being unfairly attacked or treated. I care enough to worry about the minors being protected. I care enough to ask people how their day is going, appreciate their gestures, or be genuinely concerned about their well-being. With all that said, I also know this is the virtual world, so I don't care to the point of losing sleep over anyone or bringing them into my real world... unless I get real personal with them or find out they really need me, which hasn't happened. Most of the time I stop thinking about the characters once the computer screen goes black, with rare exceptions to the rule.

Answer 8

Yes, I do. I'm not sure how I feel about the persons on here- yet. Personal attacks are uncalled for.....

However before yahoo pulled the discussion forums there was a really tight group - with far worse trolls than on here- we had our one little area that we met. I live not far from some of them and when one had some physical problems I went to help. I keep in daily contact with them.

On this section: I guess the worrier in me has great concern for a certain young man and hope he listens to us and gets help. I would really like to know what caused the bitterness in some and wish I could say something that makes it go away.

Answer 9

I put a lot of care into my answers and ,as such , I am caring about that person very much at that time. I don't necessarily remember every person I have answered questions for, of course. I do look at YA as one way to reach out to humanity, and I care about people as a whole with all my heart.

Answer 10

In a universal harmony, all the best, may you and your family never suffer horror kind of way, yes.

But generally, no. I have real, actual people, that I both personally know and see/interact with on a regular basis.

I don't know any of you but for the word you type. Sorry, but that don't cut it.

I barely really think of internet posters as 'people' anyway, more like caricatures of people, as folks views are either waaaaaay more reasonable and moderate, or ridiculously vitriolic, compared to what they really are like.

The negative ones I see like Eric Cartman with fake Tourette's: they say the most outrageous things they can because there is no recourse. I take them as seriously.

None of us here are us. We are projections of the way we want to appear, minus half of our demonstrative, communicative ability.

I don't believe you can actually 'meet' someone on the internet. You have to physically meet them and be in their actual presence.

It is for this reason that I don't allow contact, which prohibits me from contacting any of you. That also means I need not bother blocking anyone, ever. Don't care enough to get that involved.