We Internet Animals

MOST AMERICANS HAVE a smart phone, an I Pad, an I Pod, a laptop, desk top, kindle, and what not. Hell, most American teenagers have all that stuff. Or it seems like it. If not most, many. Did I leave out the big screen HD TV and viedo games consoles? Most of us, when we use these things, sort of lose and absorb ourselves in our own little world, which we consider to be our exclusive domain, our escape from the "real" world. We pick and choose our web surfing, our online friends, our interaction on social media, out texts, twitters, and tweets. And the fact that we ourselves construct our own version of virtual reality makes it seem, to all of us who so construct, as if we have constructed our own kingdom, our own universe, completely independent from anyone else, ours to own and control. Nothing could be further from the truth, in reality. And maybe that's why so many people get in trouble in online activities, and why so many people have difficulty communicating amiably with everyone, or anyone, online. What is it, one third to one half of the internet is pornography? If your teenager, say, a kid aged twelve to seventeen, spends a lot of time online, alone, behind locked doors, said teenager is doing pornography. Your teenager may even be participating in pornographic posing and picture taking. A "selfie", a picture of the self taken by the self, can be taken in the nude, and often, they are. Absolutely amazing how many women on the internet seem to enjoy showing off their private parts. Its as if an entirely different morality, entirely different beahvior, emerges during online contact. The absence of inhibition brought about by the absence of immediate, direct feedback from others. On the internet, humans are truly animals.