On Dorothy Chin s The Internet Encourages Isolation , I feel that the writer is biased, and her argument to be primarily based on her own social insecurities in dealing with the Internet. The writer begins with an anecdote of a 4-year old girl with a racist stereotype of dark people . Chin believes that the reason for the child s reaction to dark people is due to faulty reasoning, in hand with limited experience of people of different ethnicity.
Chin explains that since the child is young, within time faulty reasoning of dark people will eventually go away, but the real problem lies with the limited experience. Without giving any factual data or control studies on how people are devoting most of their time online, Chin leads us to believe that people are limiting themselves socially as a result of the Internet. The writer makes a hasty generalization by lumping us all into a category of citizens of the global village , who will eventually isolate ourselves from everyone else. Chin goes on to say; that she is grateful that technology allows her the use of her e-mail, and that because of this she is able to communicate easily with those in which it normally would have been impossible. Yet, at the same time she opposes the act of chatting with others on the Internet because it makes her uncomfortable.
She refers to chatting as an idle and artificial way of interacting with others, and that this kind of communication prevents her from actually going out and meeting other people. This may be true for her, however, because of her fears, is it fair to assume that if the rest of us were to become globally linked, that we would become as she states- lazy and uncreative to go out and find the real thing ? Yes, people all over the world use the Internet as a social meeting place. Some people even claim they have more of a chance in meeting people of different cultures through the Internet. The writer claims though, that there is something missing from not being able to see what a person on the net looks, or talks like. However, this is not entirely true because of video and audio devices that allows us to actually hear and see other people. So, how can she assume that through this type of technology, it could actually isolate us from each other, when in fact it has brought all types of people together? Regardless of technology, there is and will always be individuals who need to be around other people.
For these individuals chatting on the Internet will not suffice.
