Isn't this growing application of internet communication tools to scholarly discussion AWESOME?!?!?

Question

Is anyone else psyched about what we as a community, as a free society, can accomplish using these tools? There's so much media that the public has direct access to now (like forums and youtube, and even here on answers) to convey views and bring about new ideas in our democratic society! It totally promotes free speech! It's great! (Yeah this isn't the first time I've noticed...just a somehow enlightening moment! :D) So it's not just the big wigs who have all the power over the media--and thats awesome! Disregarding all the useless junk on the internet, what do you think could come of these tools we all have access to? What kind of impact would it make if we gave citizens in underprivileged places like Iraq or African nations access to the internet? Wouldn't that sense of connection through communication greatly increase foreign relations and world peace?! Is that a crazy thought? I think it's plausible in the near future. If there's a will....you know...

Answer 1

Yes, it certainly has that positive potential when it helps to develop competencies and a wariness for new dangers and gives opportunity to grow and self actualize.

'The need for self-actualization. -- Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.

This term, first coined by Kurt Goldstein, is being used in this paper in a much more specific and limited fashion. It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.[p. 383]

The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions. It is not necessarily a creative urge although in people who have any capacities for creation it will take this form. '

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/mot...

'Nature engenders nature, and nature only, in its reproduction and in its life. The rose brings forth more roses, never anything ‘unnatural’ or ‘unrose-like’. The human being creates humanity, but with this difference: what is human can at the same time be either ‘human’ or ‘inhuman’. The results of human action range from creations which fill our hearts and souls with lasting strength and delight, to crimes whose shame no atonement can wipe off the face of the earth.'

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subjec...

For every possible positive there is a negative:

'The ways in which our lives intermesh are terribly complex and very frustrating to the theorist. But ignoring them is to ignore something vitally important about our development and our personalities.

  Stage (age) Psychosocial crisis Significant relations Psychosocial modalities Psychosocial virtues Maladaptations & malignancies

I (0-1) --

infant trust vs mistrust mother to get, to give in return hope, faith sensory distortion -- withdrawal

II (2-3) --

toddler autonomy vs shame and doubt parents to hold on, to let go will, determination impulsivity -- compulsion

III (3-6) --

preschooler initiative vs guilt family to go after, to play purpose, courage ruthlessness -- inhibition

IV (7-12 or so) --

school-age child industry vs inferiority neighborhood and school to complete, to make things together competence narrow virtuosity -- inertia

V (12-18 or so) --

adolescence ego-identity vs role-confusion peer groups, role models to be oneself, to share oneself fidelity, loyalty fanaticism -- repudiation

VI (the 20’s) --

young adult intimacy vs isolation partners, friends to lose and find oneself in a

another love promiscuity -- exclusivity

VII (late 20’s to 50’s) -- middle adult generativity vs self-absorption household, workmates to make be, to take care of care overextension -- rejectivity

VIII (50’s and beyond) -- old adult integrity vs despair mankind or “my kind” to be, through having been, to face not being wisdom presumption -- despair

Chart adapted from Erikson's 1959 Identity and the Life Cycle (Psychological Issues vol 1, #1)'

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/erikson....

Answer 2

GREAT POINT!

Answer 3

I love the Internet. It is everything you say and has the potential to become even more influential. There are many political movements on the Web that are never mentioned on TV or in magazines or newspapers. And I am as glad as you that the media has lost some of its control.

Since being online for the past 10 plus years, I have learned so much and met so many people from other parts of the U.S. and the world. It amazes me.

Yes, Internet Communication is truly AWESOME!

Answer 4

i think it is great. i would personally like to see groups involving your communities. a group for the people to discuss things in your county or even your state. the Internet is an amazing way for people to band together and express their ideas. the news does a horribly poor job of covering important issues. an entire day will be taken up if a famous person dies. blah, blah, blah...