I’m not exactly sure if I differ from you on this, but in my view, the Internet really does not pose an unsurmountable problem as far as social relations go. It’s true that the Internet makes it much easier to be anonymous and be shallow, but it also makes it easier to maintain a much deeper level of interaction with people when it’s just not possible to meet them face-to-face.

For instance, I’m an Indian student in the United States and if it weren’t for the Internet, I would find it more difficult to keep in touch with my vast array of friends in India. Traveling to India to meet them is impractical, and in any case I cannot do it more than once a year.

It’s true that if we enter the Internet without thinking and absorb the “culture”, that may not be good. But I don’t see it as impossible to consciously seek to inject the positive elements of face-to-face conversation in online conversations. This is not to say that I’m a great success at this, but I try to often deliberately consider what I’d do if I had face-to-face contact, and then implement those ideas in distance-based contact, as I’ve discussed in a bit more detail in this blog post:

http://thinkingbeyondcompetition.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/more-on-choice/

I agree with you that it makes sense to mingle multiple modes of communication: online interaction can be tempered with occasional voice chatting and occasional face-to-face meetup, to strengthen the understanding of the other person. For me, the people with whom I chat most regularly are those with whom I really look forward to talking face-to-face, and the value and utility from face-to-face conversations has actually increased for me. For friends with whom I do not have regular online interactions, there is less of a base of interaction to draw upon when interacting face-to-face.

It seems to make more sense to me if people encourage themselves to bring in the positive elements of offline conversation into online conversation, rather than passively accept certain norms that may have developed in online interactions.

Pride and Prejudice was about the upper class - they could afford it. In the 19th century, most people passed the time in grinding labor. Moreover, there weren’t a lot of choices for entertainment. No records, no radio, no TV, not even a lot of books.

I’m not a big fan of e.g. blogging-as-connection. Again, that’s a game for the wealthy. Indeed, for everyone else, it’s possible for “social networking” to be alienating and isolating. But the 19th century holds no charms for me.

Sheesh. Talk about a failure to communicate…

But I do thank you for the comment. Maybe it will lead to some meaningful insight. Now for one thing, I think it is a huge mistake to dismiss my concerns as the concerns only of the wealthy. Surely you aren’t so much of a class warrior that you place political points above simple observation and common sense? After all, Seth, I’m not wealthy at all, but I blog. I am sure that the vast majority of people who blog aren’t wealthy, either. It’s not about class — it’s about our humanity and our collective habits, which are independent of class.

Moreover, the poorer folk (they used to be called “peasants,” didn’t they, Seth? I am so ignorant of these things) indeed did spend long winters entertaining each other with conversation, stories, and music. (Isn’t that where we get what is called “folk music” and “folk tales”? Again, I am so ignorant… ) Indeed, that sort of life is still in living memory, in rural areas.

So the peasantry, too, was less self-centered and this fact directly impacted how they related to each other and got their entertainment. My point, then, is that life on the self-directed Internet has made us more self-centered, and distracted us from the sort of conversation that made deep friendship possible.

Since 1982 I have read and indexed 900 investigative books, and thousands of newspaper and magazine clippings, in connection with NameBase. In 1993 I was still writing essays about mega-issues: cold war history, multiculturalism, Carroll Quigley and conspiracism, philanthropic foundations as an arm of U.S. foreign policy — big-picture stuff, whether you agree with my politics or not.

Since about 1995 I’ve continued indexing for NameBase, but have also spent a couple hours per day surfing the Internet for tech news, search engine news, privacy issues, programming tips, and so forth.

Now I can’t think “big picture” anymore &#151 at least not enough to write anything like the essays I used to write. The speed of the Internet and high-tech, plus the muddle of globalization, have increased the noise level and have buried important signals. There’s something I cannot get from hurried copy and paste and file, that I once got from reading a nonfiction book someone wrote after months or years of investigative effort.

I’m wondering if it’s possible to go back. I doubt it, because almost no one writes or reads investigative books anymore, and essays based on them aren’t read either, even if they’re posted on the web.

There are too many high-tech journalists chasing and endorsing the spin put out by Silicon Valley and Web 2.0 fans. It slowly fries my brain cells, and it’s already too late for me to throw my computers in the dumpster.

A sustained economic depression might be the only thing that can save us from today’s digital diarrhea, and begin, slowly but surely, to re-educate the next generation.

And yes, I think it’s important to bring this up, since there’s a strain of thought about our degraded state from a better time. Often, it really wasn’t better at all, that’s a myth.

There’s a flip side to net-evangelism, which a kind of pop-humanism. Everything’s going to hell in a handbasket, what’s the matter with kids today (”“hook up” rather than develop serious relationships”), it’s not like the Good Old Days. I detest net-evangelism, but turning it around is no improvement.

The suggestion that I am endorsing any variant of the notion of “Noble Savages” is completely silly, of course. (Are you arguing against me, or someone who who isn’t here?) The peasantry (a member of which is still alive and in my family!) had time to form friendships by conversing face-to-face, and entertain each other with music and stories. That is of course an obvious fact, a fact that was true independent of class. You can think all you want about the stupidity of nostalgia; I don’t care. The point of my post is that when it comes to being self-centered and having good old-fashioned friendships, we might want to think of some of the unintended consequences of the ascendancy of Internet communication. Try thinking of this point by itself, if you can.