Social Isolation

[Doreen Peri]

This question is directed to those of you who habitually spend several hours a day online.

Does hanging out on the internet make you feel more socially isolated or less socially isolated?

And why?

[Dave The Dov]

Hmmmm I hang on it more then what I should. But The benefit for me is that I do feel I'm interacting on the Internet. Conversing with those I know. Finding out what's happening in the news. Help in finding a new job for me. So I feel that I'm not a loner.
_________________
Mercedes Benz 220

[Lightning Rod]

The net doesn't have anything to do with my social isolation.
I just hate people....haha....just kidding,I love people, real ones.

I don't particularly like to communicate with phantoms on the net. I like to know them first. It's not the best place in the world to make friends, but it's a good way to keep up with the ones you have or find ones that you have fallen out of touch with.

But I see no harm in having imaginary friends. Same as children. It's a mechanism for coping with loneliness or not being able to communicate with real people.

I use the net mainly for work, research, business communication and to share my writing with others. But I wouldn't call it my social life. It's hard to share a bud on the net.

[stilltrucking]

Clay wrote

I don't particularly like to communicate with phantoms on the net. I like to know them first. It's not the best place in the world to make friends,

Are you sadder and wiser clay?


I am used to phantoms, voices in the night,

I lived for twenty years in a river of strangers flowing ocean to ocean

, why is this superhighway any different than the Inerstate eighty?

I spent three hundred days a year or more on the road. I

gues it is a snare and a delusion if I spent as many hours driving these days as I do on the net I would probably looking at Mt Fuji now, not that same old wall over there with the book shelves ,the globe the picture of the sailing ship, family pictures and my collection of chatzkies.





I find the inter net a very nice place to make friends,
very congenial, you never get bored with your cyber pals
you just turn off your computer
are you a virtual friend?
are you a carbon based life form?
or do you have a silicon mind
are you state of the art self evolving software
or are you squishy and analog.

I love my silicon pals
This Bud's for you
I hope you did not mean the world;s worst tasting beer

[WIREMAN]

the web....when u need it it's there.....if it's social?????....i guess it is in a completely new medium way..... what i see is that people still wanna sit at the cafe and talk.....i like living where the action is (in town).....Live is fun for me....

[Doreen Peri]

OK... thanks all for answering.

I don't think I phrased the question properly.

Dave, do you really feel like you are talking to people you know when you talk to them on the net? I don't know if I feel that way any more. I used to. I mean, I know them a LITTLE, but not very well. You can't know someone until you know them in person.

Clay, you communicate with "phantoms on the net" each and every day.

'Truckin..... Sounds like you like being alone and if you think of it as similar to driving a truck, then you are still really alone when you're on here.

Mark, of COURSE people want to sit around in a cafe and talk to each other!

Everybody needs to be social.... to have human companionship and human interaction. In PERSON.

This isn't really human interaction on the net, yanno? There's no voices. There are no real laughs. There's no touch. There's no eye contact.

I would say 70% of human communication is non-verbal, and all we really have on this machine is words.

So, my question is.... rephrased.... keeping in mind that ALL human beings need to have IN PERSON contact with other human beings... we all agree with that...

My question is.... Do you think that communicating on the internet with text on websites like this one helps you feel like you are having MORE interaction with other people or is it instead, sort of socially isolating because it becomes obvious that you are not sitting in the same room with these people, you can't hear them speak, see their eyes, etc.

Does the absence of true HUMAN in person interaction make it feel more socially isolating because it's sorta creepy that everybody's a ghost and a phantom and you don't know them really?

Or do you feel like talking on this machine to other people in a text box can actually add to your life by creating companionship and less social isolation?

(I'm assuming everybody out there has real friends and a real family and a real life where the interact with real people in person every day. Maybe that's a stupid thing to assume, because there ARE some people who don't any in-person contact ... but for the sake of this discussion, just assuming we all do.)

Ohhh... which makes me think of another question. Let's say there's a person out of contact with other human beings, lying in a hospital bed somewhere, for instance (just an example).... Totally isolated (other than the occasional nurse who stops by to take their temperature)....

Do you think that "talking" to people on the internet, people they don't really "know" in person, can help them feel less socially isolated or do you think that the absence of a human voice and an in-person face-to-face connection would make them feel even MORE socially isolated than had they not logged onto the darn thing at all?

(whew... I sure can ramble... hope what I'm trying to find out from all you phantom ghosts is becoming more clear. )

[mnaz]

yeah, the phantom ghost-like thing does kind of bother me-- to perhaps never meet face to face those with whom I've spent so much time reaching across uncertain space to try and achieve communication. On the other hand, the world seems progressively wired that way, and there is no certainty that face-to-face settles anything conclusively over the written word. so write on, I guess.. let 'em sort it out.

[mnaz]

not that I'm admitting to spending several hours a day online, of course.

[stilltrucking]

Or do you feel like talking on this machine to other people in a text box can actually add to your life by creating companionship and less social isolation

I am as narcissistic as jack Kerouac but without his talent.

The only meaning the world has is how it unfolds for me.

As for face to face yeah there are subtle non verbal clues, subliminal subconscious, that is why a friend of mine could be sitting in an interview room with a prisoner and the conversation is friendly yet the hairs on the back of my friends neck begin to stand up. And thought crosses his mind that this guy wants to kill me. And he starts listening a little bit more to what the guy is saying.


But mostly when I sit here and type you are all figments of my imagination.

Thinking about Gary Snyder's observation about the social isolation of the fifties
Something about hitchhiking a thousand miles to see a friend.

You are right D I am a hermit
We are the most got dam fucking social creatures that the creator ever put here, we are more social that bees and ants
We walk around in crowds of people talking to themselves on cell phones
We play back bits and pieces of conversations like mocking birds

Looking for companion ship?
I would suggest Joan River's advice to her daughter
Get a dog
It is less a hassle than a man.

in Friend ship
Jt
_____________________________----
Talk about a hoot
Them birds are driving me crazy
http://www.kerrytribe.com/birdsong_sampler.html

[judih]

i used to be net-sick. i loved the rush of so many english speakers in one 'place'. Then i found the dangers - stalkers, rip-off pretenders, too many shared intimacies.

All in an education.
It's still an education.

For me, the ideal situation would be lots more real-life opportunities. I'd love to be able to choose. Remember, i live in a small community of non-english speakers, non-poets, mostly of different culture sets.

so, net is good. If i am able to spend hours on the net, i consider it a rich find.

Like this site for example. What's been going on here? what's with all the creativity? it's a joy!
just when real life sneaks up on me with family around me all the time, there's a ton of amazing energy here.

next week at this time, i'll be headed back to the desert and when i cry for human companionship, i'll be glad for any phantom who happens by.

[stilltrucking]

happy landings
please keep us posted

My social interactions face to face mundane and miraculous
Now I am sitting here while A does her laundry
The woman kitty corner from me on the quadrangle
the one with the beautiful plants and the statue of St Francis statue in her garden.
She loves my dog.
I let him out in the mornings and he found his way over to the laundromat, he won't come in when I call him. So guess she will baby sit him for a while.

We are all getting so old here, I am the last man standing here in this complex, nine old women and one old man. Don't tell me who is the weaker sex

please keep us posted on your travells j.
meanwhile have fun on your run
as the good buddies would say.

[WIREMAN]

i'll say it again "it's there when you need it"........like an ice cream cone......like those guys on the street getting ron paul on the ballot.....like a john wayne movie on dvd.....like that the whole world is open and ready to become something new.....2008 in the cyber zone.....who'd a thunk we'd all be doin' this, like this way back 40 years ago....
it's evolving and it's the unexplored....what more could a writer want?????

[Doreen Peri]

Thanks very much for all for your responses.

Do any of you know any socially isolated individuals?

People whose only contact with other people are the voices and images on the television or text on the internet?

People who have little to no human contact?

[stilltrucking]

Not to be flip D
I was going to post it before
but there is a nice song called
Welcome Back to us Barbara Lewis Kare Krishna Beauregard
"she is a shut in without a home"

and didn't dylan have a song about "the lonely crowd"

A the woman I talked aboot above,
is interesting sometimes the other women tell me she won't answer her door. she is in there but she will break off contact with the world
won't answer the phone won't come to the door

we could be moving through a crowd of people and be isolated in some bubble or as Plath called it a bell jar.

I suppose that is the interesting part for me

Oh shit ramble ramble
the short answer I don't know no body like that, but I bet Hester going to meet some on her new job.

ten four wireman
it is sweet

[mousey1]

It makes me feel less socially isolated.

I spend a lot of time in my mind and on paper, in reading books and watching movies, just doing my own thing. My social circle is not necessarily one where I am surrounded by people with my interests and delights. I find most people I meet rather boring and, in fairness, it is difficult in face to face real life to get to know the nitty-gritty of those I come into contact with, so often one just touches the surface of people. I don't seem to have any real interest in getting to know those I meet in my day to day either. Yet on the net I get a flavour in the voices of a few that makes me want to know them more. It is rare but there are those few I am drawn to.

It is odd I suppose that a patterning of words on a computer screen can reach so deep sometimes. Some rare wonderful times.

I think it is wonderful that I can 'speak' with those I find interesting and that they will occasionally 'speak' back and in a very real way. They may even become friends. I am distrustful too though and keep at arms length just in case. But I have reached out.

I can see that there would be people who are truly socially isolated, for whatever reasons, finding a home on the net where they can interact and connect that is wholly satisfying. And I think it's great. I think a lot of people express the real meat of themselves online when in real living they cannot. I'm glad they have that outlet.

Will some people turn their back on the real available to them and sink into a complete internet world of existence? I'm not sure, but if needs are met online that are not being met in the 'physical world' around them, I can certainly see the attraction.

The internet opens up a world of possibility that otherwise may never be known. The internet brings into our living spaces those who perhaps we could never ever hope to get to know. And that can be a wonderful thing. There are dangers in everything and we must of course try to be wise and cautious.

I do think that young people, who should definitely be out and about learning and living and actually experiencing, need to curtail their time spent online and get busy in the physical. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, but so is the body. Use it all, don't just limit yourself and sit and gape at a computer screen.

I am grateful for the net because it has allowed me to reach out a bit and share the me who I often hold in check. Albeit shared sparsely and in only a few spots, Studio Eight being one.

We need the physical, mustn't waste the physical, we need touch, mustn't waste the sense of touch; but mind stimulation, mind fulfillment and the ability to truly express ourselves and connect with, shall we say, birds of a possible feather, when in 'life' one perhaps cannot, that's a blessing. I think.

As to your last question, I don't think I know any socially isolated individuals, but the nature of the beast is that it's not something easy to know because these types are most likely keeping themselves to themselves. We rarely ever truly know people completely. I think though that this type of person has needs and if the only way they can connect is through the cyberspace world it probably is not a bad or hurtful thing to them. Unless they're psycho nutbars! The average socially isolated human being is probably benefiting and hopefully working on obtaining some physicality somewhere along the line with like-minded. Dreaming of it. We all get lonely. So if it is their only contact, well at least it is contact, so that is a good thing.

Sorry for being long-winded. The net affords me this!