Internet Interaction: Cyberspace Social Substitutes
Introduction
The Internet is growing and so are its users. The Internet is becoming a unifying technology by bringing together digitizable media and providing a common social framework in which these materials may be used and enjoyed. It is influencing the nature of our interpersonal communication and it is entering every home and office through our cable boxes and our phone lines. The number of people online, world wide, is estimated, by Nua Internet Survey, to be 275.54 Million as of Feburary 2000. This estimate is sure to grow as the services and features offered on the Internet expand. Already the Internet offers users an enclycopedia of unlimited information that can be easily accessed with a few simple commands. Yet information is only one of the services provided for by the Internet. In fact, the large part of Internet users spend their Internet time socializing and interacting in cyber communities.
Today the Internet is linking millions of people together in new spaces that are rapidly changing the way we think, the nature of our sexuality, the form of our communities and our very identities. By offering new models of mind and a new medium on which to project our ideas and fantasies the Internet gives us the ability to talk, exchange ideas, and assume personae of our own creation. We have the opportunity to build new kinds of communities, virutal comunities, in which we participate with people from all over the world. These people we converse with daily. They are people with whom we may have fairly intimate relationships but who we may never physically meet.
Community
Computers don't just do things for us, they do things to us, including to our ways of thinking about ourselves and other people. When people explore simulation games and fantasy worlds or log onto a community where they have virtual friends and lovers, they are not thinking of the computer as an analytical engine. They are seeking out the computer as an intimate machine. The Internet and its digital communities are making connections without regard to race, creed, gender or geography. It is not a seperate reality. People bring to it such baggage as their gender, stage in the life-cycle, cultural milieu, socioeconomic status, and off-line connections with others. Computer screens have become the new location for exploring our fantasies, both erotic and intellectuall. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics and identity. People are explicitly turning to computers for experiences that they hope will change their ways of thinking or will affect their social and emotional lives. It is on the computer screen where we project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star. Some of these dramas are private but increasingly we are able to draw in other people.
The digital community is a community brought about by the interactive and participatory capabilities of the Internet. It connects individuals with shared interests and objectives but it has no physical location. The Internet cannot be thought of in geographical terms because digital networks are dimensionless with respect to information transfer. Everyone who has access to the Internet is a potential full and equal partner in each digital community. It is in the interactiveity that the sense of community resides. It is in this that the social experience may be found. In digital communities you can find and exhange information, gossip, learn, sepouse, preach, display and so on. Topics range from political, technical, social, and recreational(book reviews, hobbies, sexual fantasies). Digital communities offer much the same range of experiences as other social organizations. They provide companionship, social support, information and a sense of belonging. The only exception is that the interpersonal aspect is not-in-person.
Digital communities
are self organized and self administered and joining or resinging membership
is based on implulse. Digital communities typically form around members with
common interest, programs which those members wish to participate in, and services
which will be offered to some constituency. Digital communities require little
or no infrastructure and are ephemeral. Memberships change constantly as interests
wane and attentions shift. Digital communities change focus constantly as both
the membership and the member's interest changes. It can focus on specific topics
existing mostly for information processing. People can easily post a question
or comment and quickly recieve information in return. But as social beings,
those who use the Net seek not only information but also companionship, social
support and a sense of belonging. Many Net members use digital communities to
get help in electronic support groups for social, physical and mental problems.
The Net provides emotional and peer group support. Whatever cohesiveness there
is to be found in a Digital community will be a product of the percieved value
of the topics, programs and services found there in. Hence initiators of digital
communities will be unable to control them as they would with conventional orgainizations.
Digital villages mean different things to different people at different times. They enable people to begin exploring their own thoughts and feeling without being judged. Known only by the name of one's character or character's, digital communities give people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self. They are allowed to play with their identity and to try out new ones. Identity is so fluid and multiple on the Internet because the self is constructed and the rules of social interaction are built, not recieved. All players participate as they become authors not only of text but of themselves, constructing new selves through social interaction. The world of social interaction is one in which one can play a role as close to or as far away from one's "real self" as one chooses.
Windows provide away for a computer to place you in several contexts at the same time. As a user you are attentive to only on of the windows on your screen at any fiven moment, but in a sense you are a presence in all of them at all times. The development of windows for computer interfaces was technicall innovation motivated by the desire to get people working more efficiently by cycling through different applications. But in the daily practice of many computers users, windows have become a powerful metaphor for thinking about the self as a multiple, distributed system. The self in no longer simply playing different roles in different settings at diferent times, something that a person experiences when, for expample, she wakes up as a lover, makes breakfast as a mother, and drives to work as a doctor. The life practice of windows is that of a decentered self that exists in many worlds and plays many roles at the same time. Parrallel identities, parallel lives.
In the computer mediated world, the self is multiple, fluid, and constituted in interaction with machine connections. The identity on the computer is the sum of your distributed presence.
In Digital communities the standard modes of info exchange are present: text, graphics, sound, animations, 3-d, virtual reality, etc. Computer social networks come in a variety of types. The most popular are electronic mail (e-mail), bulletin board systems, multi-user dungeons (MUDs), and Internet Relay Chat. These virtual communities allow people to generate experiences, relationships, identities, and living spaces that arise only through interaction with technology.
Email
Email has been with us in one form or another since the earliest days of computer networks and bulletin board services. Since the early 1980's, the popularity of the Internet and that of email have been interjoined.
Email has evolved into a communication tool of choice for information technology. The popularity and ubiquitousness of email throughout academia and high-tech industry has established it as a communications standard. This standard will soon extend to the rest of the network-connectable world.
Email has separate unlisted, private mailboxes whose address is controlled by the owner; content filters which scan incoming mail messages and message-headers and store, route or delete accordingly; and message prioritization based upon a combination of "importance" number determined by sender and a bias number for each sender determined by the receiver.
Some of the technical advantages of email over other communication alternatives are that one, email can be as fast as needed. As a network medium, email disposes of transmission delays imposed by geographical distance. Plus it can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection. Another is that email, like post and unlike other electronic communication, is both asynchronous and half-duplex, and thus does not require scheduled, endpoint-to-endpoint connectivity. This enables sender and receiver to interact with their message autonomously and without distracting cross-talk. Email is also a digital medium which makes it amenable to the full range of computer-based tools and applications available on the desktop. Plus email is both paperless and archivable by default. Email can also be very efficient and, in the context of desktop automation, is also very convenient. The efficiency derives in part from the fact that both sides of email communication may be completed in isolation - one does not listen to the other party. Also email appears to be free, or at least cheap to the user.
Some of the disadvantages of email are that the convenience of email encourages abuse at the inter-personal level. Since email may easily circumvent established organizational information routes, and since there is no cost to the sender associated with the transmission, the temptation to harangue a stranger is sometimes too much to ignore. In fact email extensions encourage irresponsible mass-mailings. Alias and distribution lists make email bombing and spamming inevitable. But the dangers of email do not end with information overload. There are security issues. Modern email clients support "attachments" which are foreign (to the emailer) data files, multimedia files or executables. Such files are converted to ASCII, attached to email, transmitted and converted back again by the receiving client. Of course, the problem is with the binary, executable files which are transmitted. Therein is a fairly significant security hole and a potential source for a new wave of computer viruses.
Also it appears as though companies are reading employees email with increasing frequency. This, in turn, is producing a flurry of litigation. To mitigate against this, formal policies have been proposed, like this boilerplate policy for corporations provided by The Society for Human Resource Management: From the user's perspective, perhaps the next step is email encryption. It might be that the email privacy litigation of the next century will involve corporation's rights to insist on a back door key to the employees encrypted email.
The use of email has definite social implications. In the absence of such inter-personal communication cues as gestures, intonation, eye movement, and so forth, email communication is more easily misinterpreted. Also email is sometimes impersonal and sometimes not; and email may both increase and decrease sociability in communication.
Bulletin Board Systems
Bullentin board systems are to email what Post-it® notes are to notepads. Bulletin boards are a snappy, informal communication that we use because we're too busy to bother with unnecessarily long and polite verbiage. Bullentin boards allow you to scan all your messages at a glance and respond immediately. It skips the openings, closings, and social niceties that make emails and phone conversations un-necessarily long hence making them less personal and courteous. Bullentin boards make make communication quick, easy, and accessible everywhere. Their strategy is to promote frictionless communication through Web-based tools like Quickdot that give you maximum utility with minimum overhead.
Multi-user Dungeons
Multi-User Dungeons or MUDs, are computer programs that can be accessed through the Internet. MUDs put you in virtual spaces in which you are able to navigate, converse and build. You join a MUD through a command that links your computer to the computer on which the MUD program resides. Making the connection is not difficult; it requires no particular technical sophistication. Once in the dungeon, movement and interaction is text-based.
Multi-User Dungeons are a new kind of virtual parlor game and a new form of
community. MUD players are MUD authors, the creators as well as the consumer
of media content. In this, participating in a MUD has much in common with script
writing, performance art, street theatre, and improvisational 
theatre.
As players participate, they become authors not only of text but of themselves,
contructing new selves through social interaction. MUDs provides worlds for
anonymous social interaction in which one can play a role as close to or as
far away fron one's real self as one chooses. Since one participates in MUDs
by sending text to a computer that houses the MUD's program and database, MUD
selves are constituted in interaction with the machine. Take it away and the
MUD selves cease to exist.
On MUDs, one's body is represented by one's own textual description, so the obese can be slender, the beautiful plain, and the "nerdy" sophisticated. One is know on the MUD only by the name of one's character or characters. This gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones. MUDs make possible the creation of an identity so fluid and multiple that it strains the limits of the notion.
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is one of the most popular and most interactive services on the Internet. IRC is the net's equivalent of CB radio. But unlike CB, Internet Relay Chat lets people all over the world participate in real-time conversations. Using an IRC you can exchange text messages interactively with other people all over the world. When logged into a chat session, you "converse" by typing messages that are instantly sent to other chat participants.
As in life not all chatters have something interesting to say, but some do, and many people have developed lasting friendships through IRC. Even marriages have resulted from relationships first forged on IRC. In fact, some people have become so addicted to chatting on the Internet that there's a Usenet newsgroup entitled alt.irc.recovery. The value of IRC depends on how you use it. IRC can keep you company when you can't sleep, contribute to family togetherness and cut your phone bill. It also can expose you to unpleasant behavior. Chats can get wild and woolly, and anyone (male or female) who takes on a female persona is likely to be hit on. There is indeed a great deal of sextalk, sleaze and garbage on IRC, and one should exercise caution in allowing children to access the IRC without supervision. But, as an adult, you are free to visit only the channels you choose, and there is also a great deal of positive communication going on.
IRC gained international fame during the Gulf War in 1991, where updates from
around the world came accross the wire, and most IRC users who were online at
the time gathered on a single channel to hear these reports. IRC had similar
uses during the coup against Boris Yeltsin in September 1993, where IRC users
from Moscow were giving live reports about the unstable situation there. 
Internet Relay Chat is a way to talk to people from all over the world about anything at all. On top of the latest world news there are many help related and tech support channels where you can get immediate assistance with perplexing computer related problems on the spot and in easy to read typewritten form! It is not uncommon for an IRC server to have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of chat channels open simultaneously. There are some more or less permanent channels, but others come and go. Although a channel's name usually reflects the general nature of the conversation within, each channel can also have a specific topic. Channel names tend to remain constant, while topics change continuously
Channel topics are set by the person who creates or moderates the channel, called the channel operator. Chat participants can exchange ideas about common interests, making chat sessions an ideal means to hold forums and group discussions. For example, many businesses now hold scheduled chat sessions, wherein customers can chat with company representatives about a new product, or exchange technical information and advice. On IRC many people can simultaneously participate in discussions over a channel or even multiple channels. People can browse through various specialized "channels" before deciding to join a particular discussion.There are no limits to the number of people who can join a discussion and there is no limit to the number of channels that can be made. You are only limited by your typing speed. IRC can be fun and informative and is rapidly becoming one of the most popular areas of the Internet. And IRC will undoubtedly evolve over the next year or two with advancing technology.
The conversations are not limited to whats is going on on channels. You can have private conversations at the same time. Some IRC's such as ICQ or AIM inform you who's on-line at any time and enables you to contact them at will. You no longer have to search in vain for friends or associates on the Net. ICQ does the searching for you, alerting you in real time when they log on. The need to conduct a directory search each time you want to communicate with a specific person is eliminated.
The Future
Critics worry that life on the Net can never be meaningful or complete because it will lead people away from the full range of in person contact. They also worry that people will get so engulfed in a simulacurm virtual reality, that they will lose contact with "real life." They believe that meaningful contact will wither without the full bandwidth provided by in-person, in the flesh contact.
But virtual communities have the opportunities to offer so much. They can give emotional support, companionship, information, they help make arrangements, and provide a sense of belonging. These are all non-material soical resources that are now relatively easy to produce from the comfort of one's computer. Also virtual communities give way to fantasy and allow our visions to become experiences.
This leads to a great challenge for the next century. With all the opportunities that the Intenet can supply and the ability of one to discover oneself through the computer, how can we harness all the advantages of these new digital institutions without losing the ability or want to function in the more mundane, off-line and analog world.
Resources
Digital Villages and Cyberspace (Hal Berghel) ,(CACM, November, 1995)
Email: the good, the bad and the ugly (Hal Berghel) ,(CACM, April, 1997)
Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities (Barry Wellman), Communities in Cyberspace, April 1996
Turkle, S. (1995). LIfe on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.