Cyberspace in the community

"Cyberspace can be seen as the new bomb, a pacific blaze that will project the imprint of our disembodied selves on the walls of eternity" - Nicole Stenger - Animator

What an amazing quote, cyberspace is being compared with a bomb. Giving to the notion that the the explosion of cyberspace is just that - explosive.

Cyberspace is one of those amazing feats of man kind. Just think about it, the world wide web, interactive gaming, virtual reality the list is endless. Its a thing that all of us are aware of as the vast majority of us interact with cyberspace in our day to day lives. The author, William Gibons describes cyberspace as the following;

"A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts...A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..."

Cyberspace is now clearly embedded in the social norms that make up our society. So much so that many believe that the technology of the internet is making us a lot more social and forming a new kind of community. I can agree with this to some extent, its obvious that the internet and cyberspace as a whole has made communicating to others substantially easier. The internet is allowing interaction between people so easy that now, all you have to do to see and speak to a friend that lives on the other side of the planet, is switch on your computer.

My problem with the quote is that yes, interaction between people has become easier, but what is the off-spin from such interaction? Cyber-bullying being the main thing that springs to mind. A new form of bullying has taken over, bullying that is now even easier for one to participate in, simply because the face to face barrier is no longer there. Another problem that seems to be arising from cyberspace is that it seems to be making a false community, one that is based on nonchalant conversations, often not even via a web-cam. Could it be leading to a less personal community? What would the effects of this be? These are questions well worth a ponder over...