Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp,news.misc,news.future,alt.culture.usenet,alt.culture.internet,comp.misc From: hauben@cs.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben) Subject: Common Sense: The Net and Netizens Part I/III Message-ID: Sender: news@cs.columbia.edu (The Daily News) Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:01:13 GMT Lines: 122 Beginning in March, I started research by posting to Usenet, Freenet, and some mailing lists. In response to my inquiries about the uses people have found about the Net I received many enthusiastic replies. This data demonstrates that the Net substancially improves people's everyday lives. This impact is possible only via the open access to the Net. Any commercialization will make such access more restrictive or controlled. Hopefully this paper and other people's hard work can help strengthen people to defend the public access to the Net. Currently this paper is in draft form and I would much appreciate any comments or criticisms. As this paper is long it will be split into several posts. THE NET AND NETIZENS: The Impact the Net has on People's Lives I. PREFACE Welcome to the 21st Century. You are a Netizen (Net Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the global connectivity that the Net gives you. You consider everyone as your compatriot. You physically live in one country but you are in contact with much of the world via the global computer network. Virtually you live next door to every other single netizen in the world. Geographical separation is replaced by existence in the same virtual space. The situation I describe is only a prediction of the future, but a large part of the necessary infrastructure currently exists. The Net - or the Internet, Usenet, BITNET, VMSnet, FIDOnet, and so on - has rapidly grown to cover all of the developed countries in the world. The only parts of the world yet to be connected via E-mail are parts of Africa, Asia Minor, and South East Asia. (See the Internet Society NEWS Vol 2 No 1 back page for reference.) Everyday more computers attach to the existing networks and every new computer adds to the user base - at least ten million people are interconnected today. Why do all these people "waste" their time sitting in front of a computer typing away? They have very good reason to! Ten million people plus can not be wrong. We are seeing a revitalization of society. The frameworks are being redesigned from the bottom up. A new more democratic world is becoming possible. According to one user the Net has "immeasurably increased the quality of my life." The Net seems to open a new lease on life for people. Social connections which never before were possible, or relatively hard to achieve, are now much more accessible, by those on the Net. A new world of connections between people - either privately from individual to individual or publicly from individuals to the collective mass of many on the net is possible. The old model of distribution of information is from the central Network Broadcasting Company to everyone else. This is the top-down model of decisions of what information is made by a few distributed for mass-consumption. Rather a person has the ability to broadcast his or her ideas and questions around the world and people respond. The computer networks form a new grassroots connection that allows the excluded sections of society to have a voice. This new media is unprecedented. Previous grassroots media have existed for much smaller sized selections of people. The model of the Net proves the old way does not have to be the way of networking. The Net does not abolish the idea of networking - or making connections with strangers that prove to be advantages to one or both parties. This complete connection of the body of citizens of the world does not exisit as of today, and it will definitely be a fight to make access to the Net open and available to all. However, in the future we might be seeing the possible expansion of what it means to be a social animal. Practically every single individual on the Net today is available to every other person on the Net. Someone might suggest this universal connection exists with the telephone network today. However the telephone companies charge more for the further you have to call. Use of the Net is currently unmetered. International connection coexists on the same level with local connection. Also the computer networks allow a more advanced connection between the people who are communicating. While you need to know a person's name to locate their telephone number, or perhaps you may have received the number from them personally. With computer-communication systems, information or thoughts are connected to people's names and electronic-mail addresses. On the Net, one can connect to others who have similar interests or whose thought processes they enjoy. Connections not before possible, imaginable or feasible, whether global (across the world) or just around the corner (locally) are now happening everyday. Netizens make it a point to be helpful and friendly - if they feel it to be worthwhile. Many Netizens feel they have an obligation to be helpful and answer queries and followup on discussions to put their opinion into the pot of opinions. Over a period of time the voluntary contributions to the Net have built it into a useful connection to other people around the world. Many people who replied to my "Is the Net a Source of Social/Econ. Wealth?" post responded to my point calling the net a source of accurate information. People corrected me and said it was also a source of opinions. However, the reader can train himself to figure out the accurate information from the breadth of opinions. I hoped to give an example of this by grouping a wide sample of the answers I got to my research together in one document. The Net can be a helpful medium to understand the world. Only by seeing all points of view can anyone attempt to figure out their position on a topic. Information, and thus people, are coming alive. Netizens can interact with other people to help add to or alter that information. Information is no longer a fixed commodity or source on the Nets. It is constantly being added to and improved collectively. The Net is a grand intellectual and social commune in the spirit of the collectivity from the origins of human society. Netizens working together continual expand the store of information worldwide. One person called the Net an untapped resource because it provides an alternative to the normal channels and ways of doing things. The Net allows for the meeting of minds to form and develop ideas. It brings people's thinking processes out of isolation. Every user of the Net gains the role of being special and useful. The fact that every user has his own opinions and interests adds to the general body of specialized knowledge on the Net. Each Netizen thus becomes a special valuable resource to the Net. Each user contributes to the whole intellectual and social value and possibilities of the Net. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Michael Hauben CC '95 | E-mail me for sample copies of | | hauben@cs.columbia.edu | The Amateur Computerist Newsletter | | hauben@columbia.edu | & read the alt.amateur-comp newsgroup | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above is the original post as far as I can tell of what became the first part of the first chapter of Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. It appeared on July 6, 1993 and appears to be archived on groups.google.com at: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=C9qE61.KFB%40cs.columbia.edu&output=gplain jrh