Internet may create the isolated man

I attended a talk given by Cornell’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and IRL graduate, Jay Walker a few weeks ago.  One of the topics that remained with me after the talk was a social epidemic that may affect people in the future because of technological enhancements, especially in the area of the internet.  This social epidemic illustrates a world in which virtual reality technology with the use of the internet will create people who do not need to go outside their house to experience the “real world”, and thus, a whole new world of the “isolated man”.

In today’s world people can conduct daily life tasks without ever leaving their front door.  People can shop for clothes, buy groceries, talk to people, and a whole number of daily social activities all through the internet.

In the future, I can envision technology enhancements to the point that people can explore the whole world through the safe confines of one’s own home.  Through technologies in virtual realities and 3D holograms projections downloaded through the internet.

For example, a person just has to download a Louvre Museum package from the internet and through virtual reality technology, one’s own personal home can change into the Louvre Museum and anybody will be able to explore the world’s most rare exhibitions that were hitherto available half a world away.

Another example could be going to school, in which a person could take a course in an actual classroom setting through virtual technology with all the students and the teachers logged in together through the same internet platform.  This will be convenient in the sense that students and teachers will now not need to spend money and effort on traveling and go to school directly from one’s own living room.

Although these technological improvements may bring added convenience to everyday people, and perhaps help people who are paralyzed, sick in bed or or blind enjoy the benefit of seeing the world like everyone else, I can also foresee a social epidemic that could occur because of the use of virtual reality to “see the world”.

People that are naturally introverts who try to minimize social interactions with people may become more and more closed in to his or her own world.  If one can have social interactions in one’s own house, than one would not need to spend the time and energy to leave the house.  However, virtual reality can never replace actual reality.  If this type of virtual reality technology pervades society, it could create a world of lonely men and women who rely on the internet to reach out to the world, because they desire the safety and comfort of solitude.  Therefore, people will begin to interact less with other people and we may see the new world of the isolated man.

On the up side, we can always find ways to prevent this measure.  New types of therapy sessions can be created to prevent this syndrome of solitude.  The internet companies can have regulations on the amount of time a user can spend on internet virtual reality.  For example, even nowadays in China, the government has forced online gaming companies to enforce time caps on their online games to prevent players from spending more than a certain amount of time on an online game.  (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/10/content_7188303.htm)

The point I am trying to make is that future technological advancement can also create new social epidemics that do not exist now.  As technology becomes more advanced than so should social awareness programs; this will ensure that technology does not pervade the lives of people to the extent of shutting them off from the real world.

Ehotelie – A blog for hotelies who love the internet!

The internet has changed the nature of human interaction. All you need is a computer terminal and a phone line for internet connection and you will have access to a technology that has revolutionized the relationship between one human and another. Currently, approximately 22% of the world’s population has access to the internet. Although that is still a small minority, 22% of the world’s population is about 1.5 billion people (en.wikipedia.org). The astonishing implication of that figure is that 1.5 billion people are on the same playing field called the internet. That means that we, as internet users, have the possibility to communicate with 1.5 billion other people in this world. And unlike the telephone, I would be able to communicate with much more than just one person at a time. If I told this to someone 20 years ago, that person probably would have thought that I had been reading way too much science fiction. Moreover, it is estimated that in the year 2030, about 50% of the world’s population will have access to the internet (www.50×15.com).

Hence, we, Jade and Terence, have decided to write this blog on how the internet has changed human interaction in both the business context and social context for Professor Wagner’s Informational Systems class in Cornell’s School of Hospitality Administration. In the business context, we want to mention in our blog the most important internet-based business application: e-commerce. E-commerce, defined by Wikipedia as “consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks”, has grown dramatically within the recent 24 years since Amazon.com appeared as the first virtual bookstore. Why do people enjoy e-commerce? Because compare to any traditional brick-and-mortar stores ( a.k.a. B&M), e-commerce requires less time (unless you love to get overwhelmed in surfing online stores), but gives customers more convenience and a variety of products, with mostly better price. For example, a current trend for many popular banks in the U.S. is to encourage their customers to use online banking for checking account balance, creating e-check, and transfer funds. However, this trend raises a considerable concern regarding identity-theft. Another example of using e-commerce is internet advertising. Internet advertising has gone a long way from simple banner ads, pop-ups and spam emails, to search engine optimization, pop-under ads, and web 2.0. How about inter-personal relationship under the impact of internet? We are sure that most of people who are reading this blog are familiar with internet tools such as email, instant messenger (IM), forum, and blog. The concept underlying in these tools is that people always want to keep connected with their friends and family no matter how far their distance is.

With the next blog entries, we would like to write about the following aspects of internet impact in business and relationship: electronic fund transfer and transaction processing, internet security, internet advertising, internet-based auctions, email, IM, forum, and blog. Throughout our blog, we would like to stress the role of IT in the society through technological determinism, and social shaping. Moreover, we hope that our readers can relate our blog to answer the 4 W questions about the internet impacts in business and human relationship: What, Why, How, and Who. We hope you can realize that it is YOU that will cause the internet to evolve and it is YOU that can change the experience about internet of people around you. We will use three methods in each entries: analyze, inform, and predict.

To illustrate how the internet has changed human interaction we can look to the story of Aubrey and Dan. Aubrey was a single girl living in Richmond Virginia. Dan was a combat medic halfway across the world in Iraq. Through the online dating website E-Harmony, Aubrey was able to find a perfect match in Dan’s profile page. Soon, they began having regularly correspondence through email and telephone. The fact, that they lived world apart did not hinder their blossoming relationship. Undoubtedly, Dan and Aubrey would never have been able to meet without the internet. They got engaged on September 24^th, 2008.

Hope your have enjoyed reading our blog. Please look forward to our next entry.