Re:The Addict Hides

The world wide web does offer some striking attractions to the "addictive personality" type persons. I dislike the use of labels, but they do have merit in easing communicational constraints and finding common ground. Lurkers, flamers, addicts, webheads, and what-have-you's-- all tell us something about the personalities of the "other persons" (and ourselves as we define the others) in the www enviroment.

I prefer enjoying the www experience as a simple in/out kind of thing. Many introverts in their f2f contacts become extroverts online, and the other way around too. And specific websites can turn an otherwise harmless lurker into a defiant flamer and so on as each person melds their www experiences with their f2f experiences seeking common ground in the www enviroment.

Common ground for most surfers still remains in their f2f life. I can understand a newbie coming online and embracing an introvert type online personality (internalizing most experiences) and then as they gain confidence trying out some extroverted behaviours (externalising specific experiences) and that pretty well is the measure of most surfers on the web. Keeping it safe and harmless.

Addicts of course are a horse of a different color, and just like that horse in the Wiard of Oz that keeps changing color each time the camera sights it, cyber addicts have changed their common ground from their f2f life to their cyber life. And so as they seek more and more common ground in "cyber world", they of course have to be online more and more. The rest of us "normals" are (shocked?!) at their behaviours which we interpret as their being introverted and reclusive from general society as they become "addicted" to their cpu and www connection, but in fact these same introverts in f2f life are usally extroverts in cyberworld.

And to "them" we are the introverts living out our addictive f2f lifes in a world that is expotentially getting more and more computerised, with less and less f2f common ground.

So will the real addict please stand up!!

All things are relative. When you look at me you see what I see in as much as our common ground allows. When I look at a mirror image of myself I see fantasy. My entire common ground is internal since my mirror image is the only external of me at that moment. The web is like that for me. I tap my keyboard and my monitor changes images. It is no more real to me than my mirror image. And just like my f2f contacts re-engineer my fantasies of my f2f life, cyber contacts do the same for my cyberlife. As those cyber contacts grow, the fantasy becomes less fantasy and more real.

When the world was flat just under 600 years ago, it was probably a much safer place to live. And then it slowly became round and a less fantasy place to exist; but with more fantastic experiences all at the same time. And now that the world is once again going from flat to round it is quite difficult to find common ground.

The earth has moved. Most of the world's population is still paying high rent on desolated flatness. More and more are paying hardly anything to cross over the new cyber oceans and find land in the New World. Too bad everybody dosen't know how to swim.

So in the end, I suppose we are all addicted to something, we just don't all have the same pusher. And I suppose we are all hiding from something too, we just are not all running away in the same direction. And finally I suppose nobody can really get IN to something new unless they are already getting OUT of something old. We can only max ourselves out so much.

Still though, f2f is where it's really at for me cuzz I am a pretty good swimmer. (at least in calm waters)

(Jesus! Ya'd think I was writing a book or sumptin?!)

:)

Replies:

Re: Yes to f2f, by Lana, 6/2/99

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