Order of Hasson

"We have kids who don't know how to communicate with people face-to-face because they've spent the last three years talking to somebody in Korea through a computer," Bakker said. "Their social network has completely disappeared."

Has it truly disappeared, or has it evolved into a digital network?

Sure, some people game far too much...like all those chinks that keep dying in Internet Cafes, but is it really such a devistating epidemic that the human race will cease all functions?

I say no.

It is worse than you would think. As a house-warming gift, my sister got my wife and I subscriptions to pogo.com. It is nice because I can play games with her online (cards and whatnot, mostly) or some single-player stuff to pass the time.

Anyway, there are alot of young kids on it. My nephews and neices all play and they are ages 4-10. While they speak coherently (to me at least), the general chat is completely fucked up.

As an MMO vet, I consider myself well-versed in internet acronyms (OMGWTFBBQ FTW). For these young teens on the internet, it is worse by order of magnitude.

Person A: gg ev1
Person B: thx u2
Person A: yw thx
Person B: thx

On the surface it isn't that bad but this is every goddamn event. Everything solicits a response (thx, yw, yw thx) and it all has to be shortened somehow. Over 80% of them would fail a Turing Test, because the responses are so predictable and superflous.

Then again, I am someone who squelches guild chat when everyone is low level, because I hate fucking hearing about your level 8 ass "dinging". I admit I may be overly sensitive.

Hkat wrote:Has it truly disappeared, or has it evolved into a digital network?

You call talking to a bunch of characters from over the world a social context? Online interaction is by absolutely no means a substitute to real society, or even close to. Especially considering 99% of the cases are like Kabol describes.

Even if this is hardly a widespread epidemic, even if mainstream media is as always sensationalizing something completely marginal about video gaming, the fact remains that those marginal obsessive types could greatly benefit from such a treatment.

Kabol wrote:Over 80% of them would fail a Turing Test, because the responses are so predictable and superflous.

How ironic, too, that their social skills could be surpassed by the most trivial chat algorithms. =p

Jan wrote:

Hkat wrote:Has it truly disappeared, or has it evolved into a digital network?

You call talking to a bunch of characters from over the world a social context? Online interaction is by absolutely no means a substitute to real society, or even close to. Especially considering 99% of the cases are like Kabol describes.

I didn't say that it was a substitution for actual social interaction, I said it was an evolving form of networking. If social interaction completely ceases, then yes, the human race will cease to be. Most of my direct business contacts never get face to face time, because I'm too busy and they're too busy, but we do interact through telephones, IM, emails...what's the difference? What's the difference between a school project where a child sends a pen-pal a letter in the mail, or sends him the same letter in an e-mail? The only thing that changes is the time it takes for that message to arrive, but some how because it's on a computer, that invalidates the meaning or reality of the letter?

Kabol wrote:Anyway, there are alot of young kids on it. My nephews and neices all play and they are ages 4-10. While they speak coherently (to me at least), the general chat is completely fucked up.

As an MMO vet, I consider myself well-versed in internet acronyms (OMGWTFBBQ FTW). For these young teens on the internet, it is worse by order of magnitude.

Person A: gg ev1
Person B: thx u2
Person A: yw thx
Person B: thx

This isn't poor networking, or poor social interaction, it's bad grammar, and that's all. However, because so few people police internet chat (and those that do get flamed for it) it will continue to compound into various forms of slang and regional dialect, just like verbal communication. The only difference being, that the english language is hammered into our minds from birth, and year after year in school, until hopefully we can all communicate on better than an eigth grade level.

I'm sure most of you will agree that while you can chat like that in a game there's no way in hell you'd use the same typing on your resume, or on a report/paper that you would have to turn in to be graded.

Wow, look at my post!

I believe that everyone I talk to in game are products of the internet. Thus, all of you guys are really the internet talking back to me. This is what my wife and family believe anyway since they say I have no "real" friends.

Hkat wrote:This isn't poor networking, or poor social interaction, it's bad grammar, and that's all. However, because so few people police internet chat (and those that do get flamed for it) it will continue to compound into various forms of slang and regional dialect, just like verbal communication. The only difference being, that the english language is hammered into our minds from birth, and year after year in school, until hopefully we can all communicate on better than an eigth grade level.

Bad grammar aside, that isn't really a stimulating conversation. Nothing meaningful is conveyed. It is a pattern of responses, hence my reference to a Turing Test.

Yes, they still go to school and should pick up what they need to communicate in real life. However, instead of going outside or over to a friend's house after school, they are playing games online and having these banal conversations.

They can write an ok resume, but what about that pesky interview?

Kabol wrote: They can write an ok resume, but what about that pesky interview?

I don't see how they are any worse off than the yokel who wears NASCAR t-shirts into an interview.

It's about parenting, not who you talk to on the Internet.

Payndar Circusdorf wrote:

Kabol wrote: They can write an ok resume, but what about that pesky interview?

I don't see how they are any worse off than the yokel who wears NASCAR t-shirts into an interview.

It's about parenting, not who you talk to on the Internet.

Let's compare apples to apples here. You have a choice of what you wear to an interview. You don't have a choice to be socially apt.

Of course parenting has a lot to do with it, I wasn't stating otherwise. I have nephews and neices who are approaching that age. Luckily, their parents are online savvy enough to monitor what they do.