Digital Nation Paper

The Mob. 
What are the, perhaps, unintended effects unleashed by our connectedness? Does anonymity plus connectivity always equal misbehavior and cruelty? How are we to explain some of the collective anger that seems to be unleashed online - and is it a result of the same anger characterizing much of our society's discourse, or is it the cause?

            Whether one realizes it or not, the internet has changed our society in many ways.  It has allowed to us an ease of access to those who are far away in distance by simply sending emails, using social networks, or possibly by video conferencing.  It has also attracted bigger audiences mainly in the gaming world.  The internet is definitely something that is here to stay whether it we realize it or not.

            The internet in the aspect of its ease of access has allowed its users to stay in touch with many others.  Everyday many new users are beginning to join social networking sites in order to meet new people as well as connect to familiar ones.  I have been using social networking sites since my freshman year of high school.  Myspace was very popular while I was in high school.  My reasoning for joining this site was because everyone else around me was doing the same so I sort of followed the increasing trend.  Around this time I wasn’t too concerned with privacy so I put loads of information about myself because I figured that I would only accept requests from the people I knew so I would have nothing to worry about.  Many people like myself tend to not realize just how dangerous social networking sites can be.

            More often than not, people accidently lead others on just by simply being nice especially in social networks.  Small acts like accepting friend requests, responding to comments, and even pop chatting even can be very dangerous if you aren’t too familiar to the person talking to you.  Around August of this year, someone who I am very close with encountered this kind of problem.  Her attacker was a lot more anonymous with his approach.  He hacked her facebook page and email.  By doing this he was able to get her number also.  He called her often harassing her and demanding things such as pictures or else he would try and expose her to everyone over the internet.  She contacted the police to try and help fix her problem.  It has been almost two months since she has received a call from the hacker and she has not used facebook since nor has the hacker been caught. 

            It seems apparent that no one is completely safe from the internet because everyday people are finding ways to cheat the system and do things that aren’t allowed.  Acts of misbehavior and cruelty are becoming more and more evident online and very heavily within video gaming as a result of anonymity and connectivity.  Online gaming has become very big over the past few years with the evolution of the xbox 360 and playstation 3.  All a gamer needs is to create a profile for saving achievements and then they are able to play online.  These profiles are very private and other gamers only are able to see what you allow them to.  This is a positive in regards to privacy and identity.  With the positive comes the negative.  With all the hidden identities within these profiles and online gaming, video gamers tend to misuse their privacy.  The realization that things can be done without being reprimanded for it influences users to commit acts of name calling, harassment, racial slandering, as well as cyber bullying.  Every time I play online I witness things like this.  People from all over the world act horrendous online because they know that the no one will ever find out who they are.

            As an individual who is also part of the online video gaming realm, I find it unacceptable for people to act in such a way whether or not they are joking around because it really does affect people.  Possible reasoning behind this excessive unleashing of anger online may be due to personal problems.  A person may be constantly bullied, mistreated, or just have a low amount of self esteem so they use online gaming to help relieve stress.  The online realm is actually a very popular place to help people to let out their anger because they are able to express how they are feeling and be able to find others who are feeling the same.

            The internet is a very huge area with many users all of which use its anonymity and connectivity in their own personal way.  Whether good or bad, people will continue using the internet this way because they are in control.  This trend will continue because there are too many people to try and control within the internet.