Whenever I Call You Friend...
Most of the remaining 25% of my online friends, the ones I do know, or at least have met, I must be honest, are social acquaintances. But they are welcome in my home at almost any time, and there is very little I wouldn't do for them. I enjoy our common interests, respect our differences and appreciate their personality and, on most occasions, wisdom. These are my real friends, not the hundreds of people who have checked out my profile at least--and often, only--once, but the people who I depend on on a regular basis, whether for a shoulder to lean on or just someone to do shots with!
But most people, especially the younger set who seem for the most part to not know any better, don't seem to be able to discern the difference and have long misappropriated the definition of the word "friend", usually and often to mankind's detrition. The fault, for once, lies not within society itself, always a redefining evolution of mores and practices. No, the fault lies in the most innocent and innocuous of modern conveniences: the Internet.
The Internet, or the idea of it, goes back to the late 1960s to its original inception as ARPANET, created by some very smart people at UCLA and for the Department of Defense who wanted to be able to distribute large packets of data and intel for one set of military networks to another (my representations may seem either trite or pedestrian; for a more succint, fleshed-out and properly sourced history of the internet, CLICK HERE). Long, very short, other newtorks were created for other fields (research, science, industry) using ARPANET as an evolving model along with radio and satellite communications info-sharing protocols.
Al Gore did NOT create the Internet; he DID help the availability of the Internet get pushed through (read, funded by) government for much of its commercial use we couldn't imagine living without today. And yours truly, a web designer and blogger, couldn't be more grateful. But there are several downsides to modern-day world wide web-ibility that are getting by globally unnoticed.
Need proof? Paris Hilton was created by the Internet! If it wasn't for the ease of speed and volume of distributing pictures of her pantyless getting out of SUVs or that green-tinted amateur video, 80% of the world would still have no idea--or give a crap--who she was! Janet Jackson's Nipplegate would still be just a theory of possibly inebriated memory and not the million time-documented and emailed reality that cost CBS a half million+ dollars in fines and millions of dollars more in advertisers.
In fact, when I was 12 years old and wanted to get my hands on some smut, it took a 5-boy unit of me and my classmates to orchestrate and execute a plan worthy of a college football playbook or The A-Team to distract the corner newsstand guy by 2 of us asking for a Car & Driver or Field & Stream situated high and behind him while another of us put his bookbag on the stack of Penthouse magazines while yet another slid the Penthouse into his book binder, then handed the binder to the fifth party out of view behind the newsstand. We'd walk in separate directions and reconvene in Riverside park to draw straws to decide in what order each of us would get to take the mag home for private and personal perusal (you'd really want to be first or second...).
Now I have to go into my browser preferences and change my settings to filter out adult pop-ups. Do you understand what I'm saying? I have to block porn! Only because it is so easily and readily available. If I ever have a son, I can imagine starting this generational tirade: " When I was your age, we had to to plan and work with a likewise able and skilled team to get our porn!"
But the proliferation of smut shouldn't be our only concern. People have adamantly as of late spoken viscerally against the NSA's wire-tapping of civilian phones and the broad strokes of license in the fine print of the Patriot Act, citing both as an invasion of privacy. Do you want to guess where much of this vitriolic concern is published. By pure number of words, not in print but on the internet. The irony here is that the complaint of invasion of privacy is being debated on our least private medium; yes, the Internet!
The adage-turned-tagline involving Las Vegas goes, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." Well, what happens on the internet stays on the Internet, and is a whole lot easier to get to than Las Vegas! I'm not just talking about vitals, such as name or address (although this is information people should be more careful about sharing, as the woman who had a hitman hired by her friend's girlfriend to kill her found out after the women who wanted her dead got her number and home address from the almost victim's MySpace page). Nor am I talking about financial information like credit cards, banks or even SSN#s, even though it was more than a odd coincidence who, less than a month after I file my taxes on line for the very first time, I receive a letter from the IRS about tariff monies owed them from 1998, a year I guess I "forgot" to file.
No, I'm talking about real personal shit. Google keeps a record of every search of every user ever! You can delete the search history from your hard drive; Google can reproduce using your IP address within seconds. On the Internet, people have a tendency to relate some of their most personal and private intimacies to complete strangers in an emails and chat rooms, thoughts, ideas, fantasies they would never share with those closest to them. Why people would feel safer acting this way on the Internet is beyond me, just like why these same folks are surprised that someone saved these correspondences. I myself have been done in, to lesser degrees, for some spiritually-induced vitriol I have texted some girl (and, yes, satellite, as well as radio, are major camponents of the Internet).
But the very thing that people use more than anything else, the most personalized piece of hardware in their home, is the very thing that could irreparably destroy their lives. I've seen enough People's Courts, Law & Orders, Columbine copycat wannabees, NBC Datelines and Mark Foleys to realize that, although you can destroy a disc drive, the stuff from it over the Internet--these easily traceable one-and-zero permutations--live on immune and impermable to everything save encryption and de-encryption. Add the Internet to that list that already contains death and taxes!
The Internet is inarguably convenient. Like most people, it does help me stay in touch with people my busy schedule keeps me from talking to more regularly. But it also adds the risk of making me dependent. Even the amount of time I spend writing these blogs could be better spent over an early dinner in the good company of a great friend. Geography and schedules conflict in a city like New York, and that early dinner becomes more and more difficult to make happen. Would I rather have an even semi-in-depth, in-person conversation with each of my true friends than blind-carbon-copy email them links to my blogs? Of course. But not possible, for most people.
Maybe this is way the Internet has become most people's best friend whether they realize it or not. It's always there for them, and it never judges. For me, the line will never blur. My friends are not people who I can only identify by a 48 pixel x 48 pixel screen icon. Like the Internet, friends can evolve over time and reinvent itself; however, unlike the Internet, true friendships help you evolve, too!
