from wikipedia

I heard a loud sound like a car horn, and turned around to realize I’d been standing in the middle of a parking lot without a clear idea of for how long. After having left the grocery store I remembered hearing the sound of an incoming text, and without thinking I’d stopped to dig my phone out of my purse and respond. Then, out of habit, I checked my email. There I found a couple notifications from facebook, but before I’d finished reading the sound startled me and I realized I was standing in the middle of the road. I scurried out of the way and realized for the first time how strange it is that tech savvy people these days live lives which are physically divided– real life and virtual life. I was cognizant for the first time of the look that must have been on my face, and ever since then I’ve been seeing that look everywhere, like their real-life body has been put on pause while they live their life in another world. I’ve grow a nasty habit of staring at these people and wondering if they know how strange they look.

Ever since watching Lain, one of the most mind-screwy animes ever conceived, I’ve been having these troubling thought experiments about the meaning of online existence. For example: lets say a person lives a profound and influential life in the virtual world but nowhere else. They never leave their home, never meet people in person, but online they accomplish a great many things. This is a though experiment, but certainly not impossible, and becoming more possible all the time. Can that person be said to have lived a meaningful life? I suppose that question is fundamentally unanswerable as the definition of a meaningful life is subjective, but it’s a fun question to ask.

Enter virtual suicide. Sometimes we get obsessed with things and realize far too late how strange and probably psychologically unhealthy they are. The other day I discovered this web-based way to commit virtual suicide, and I’ve been addicted to reading people’s “last words” testimonials. The website is essentially a shamelessly emo way to cancel your twitter or facebook account, completely with totally wrong puns galore, but I found myself being unreasonably interested from a philosophical/psychoanalytical standpoint. Why is this so fascinating to me? Is it because I’ve always wanted to know what my own funeral will be like? The idea that we could live a virtual life is interesting because once the notion of a life existing in two places can be accepted, then life after death becomes possible in a very real way. Uh, yeah, by the way, I have a cold and probably shouldn’t be allowed to post anything in a public way. Now that my head feels even more like a swimming pool I think I’ll go lay down

What if you had an enormous network of people who were interacting with each other in a virtual space? It wouldn’t really be reality, but the mind would have a hard time telling the difference. Would people behave differently, and if so, how? We already have such a beast, called the internet, and psychologists are scrambling to come up with a paradigm which explains human behavior in it. Unfortunately, many of the early work on virtual spaces was done by psychologists who had no native understand of this big, internet-type thing all the crazy kids are into these days. It hasn’t been until fairly recently that members of the 1337 have tackled these issues.

I was prompted to write this post after reading about how Micheal Arrington is taking a break from tech crunch because of the threats on his life. This sparked a discussion on mixx about human behavior in virtual spaces. To be perfectly honest, empirical research on this subject is virtually non-existent (no pun intended . . . well, maybe a little). Not to sound too much like a jackass, but it’s going to be people like me, and others of my generation, who work on solving the great human behavioral mysteries of virtual spaces with a native understanding of the beast.

All I have at this point are my observations and beliefs about human nature and interaction in virtual spaces. Relationships tend to be more intense and shorter lived than in “real life”, or what I like to call “the meat space.” Anyone who’s been flamed or has visited the seedy underbelly of the internet knows the depths of utter ridiculousness that internet relationships can reach. People get angry, volatile and spew hatred that they would never dream of in the meat space. my friend Jay’s favorite saying is “internet audience + anonymity = asshat.” I don’t know if that’s completely true, but what is it about the internet that changes people’s behavior? And what about those people who seem to act exactly the same online as in real life, what’s different about them? Maybe someday we will know.

Ah, yet another completely unfulfilling blog post brought to you by me. Have a nice day!

Well, this isn’t actually original content. I stole this from my journal then wrote off the lines that didn’t make sense. Enjoy!

22 June 2008 @ 03:01 am
It’s late. It’s 3 am late. I think three a.m. is officially, like, the middle of the fucking night.

I just got off skype with a friend of mine. We talked about a great deal of things, among which was our time spent on the internet. He mentioned feeling like he’d wasted an incredible amount of time online, and I can surely sympathize. Sometimes I wonder if there’s any point to being online at all; the internet is this weird little world that is separate from reality with no way of knowing how relevant it is.

I am completely naked right now because I just got out of the shower. Good thing I don’t have my webcam going! lol! “Lol” means “laugh out loud,” which I didn’t actually do just now. In fact, I didn’t even smile. The joke really wasn’t that funny.

The real question is what is important? What is important to do with your life? Obviously if the goal of living is to make friends on the internet then spending tons of time on the internet is crucial, but most people seem to have this idea that time on the internet is really just interstitial. You spend time online while you’re waiting to do other things that are important. Therefore, nothing you ever do is important because you spend all your time online. For the hyper-wired semi-masses, the internet takes over and the line between reality and nonreality becomes a little vague.

For the mind, there is no real distinction between high imagination and reality. It’s becoming more and more plausible for people to live an entire life through the internet. Who’s to say there’s anything wrong with that? Who’s to say it isn’t a complete waste of human life?

So I ask myself what I’m doing online and why. Why am I in the thick of social media and does that really mean anything? If I simply unplug myself from that world it will keep going on without me; I’ll be just a blip on the radar. But I suppose that is the way it is with all things.

Boy, this was a happy entry.

I guess it’s better than having my house catch on fire, though. Part of Watsonville was on fire yesterday, and I realized that if I had to evacuate I could leave everything and not miss any of it, which made me very happy.

End existentialist rant #0. And, if anyone can tell me why images aren’t working so I can get back to wasting time on the internet, that’s be swell.