I recently finished Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality by Elias Aboujaoude, MD, and it got me thinking like no other book in recent memory. This is particularly because many of the issues discussed within it were ones I'd been pondering for some time, well before it caught my eye at the school library. The book's argument is this: Though the internet is a force for good and a tremendous boon to the world in many ways, if we don't exercise moderation, it also runs the risk of turning us into childish, impulsive, inattentive, socially inept narcissists with zero privacy (worst-case scenario, of course). Simply put, the sheer number of things available to do online, as well as the speed and illusion of detached anonymity with which one can accomplish them, has serious implications for both human psychology and human civilization.
So what are your thoughts on the matter? Do you ever, say, buy over the internet things you never would in a brick-and-mortar store because of the disconnect with "real" money? Do you lose any empathy for tragic events in the news when you're hearing constant updates about it from five different sites alongside the day's hottest viral video clip? Do you think there are any dramatic effects dealt by a message board such as this, where fully formed identities take a backseat to what we can garner from a username and signature? What about the polar opposite, Facebook, where everything short of "What number am I thinking of right now?" can be answered in a matter of clicks, given the right privacy settings? I'll save my no doubt tl;dr-worthy thoughts on the matter for a while (including thoughts on the use of such phrases as tl;dr), and instead turn it directly over to you.