I remember the first time I logged onto a remote computer at some distant university in late 1992. The experience of "going someplace else" from my desk was one of some vague, unintelligible excitement. I think I know now what that excitement was. It was the anticipation of what was beginning to grow in "cyberspace"; a sense of expectancy about what might be built as people begin to bring their knowledge, interests, and ideas together in "one place".
It was on Ecunet where I began to interact with people from the church across the country. It was the place where the concept of ecumenical became more than just a word for me. It was, for the first time, a personal experience. I was envisioning a computer network not unlike the secular counterpart Compuserve, where the Church could dip into a common pool of resources, ideas, and discussion. I would be drawn into a dialogue that was to shape my vision of the days ahead in CMC for the church. Dialogue often returned to the concept of online community, and it was to become the central purpose of my online vision.
The online world of computer networks had been opened up to the general public, and the race to develop easier to use interfaces for "exploring" and "communicating" was on. Soon after my first remote "telnet" experience of logging on, the first Windows , "graphical" interfaces to the Internet arrived at BIX, and I was browsing the Internet through "Gopher". Still, the information was not all easily found, and there was just not very much out there in the area of online community.
The first major book that I discovered on this phenomenon was from Howard Rheingold, a WELL* member. "The Virtual Community" introduced the possibilities for community in the online world to a society for whom computer networks were largely conceived as havens for geeks and technicians.
*The WELL was a large BBS system started by the group who created the Whole Earth Catalog.
The Virtual Community traces the human communication origins of the vast network of commercial activity we see to day. From the beginnings of the Computer Network ideas in the late 1950's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) formed by the Department of Defense in the hopes that "here would be a fast response mechanism closely tied to the president and secretary of defense to ensure that Americans would never again be taken by surprise on the technological frontier." (from Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet, p.14) This network, conceived as a highly specialized technical network between top-flight researchers in top-secret government research, would evolve into several networks of different sponsorship by government, education, and industry that would eventually be interlinked, made over, and upgraded in pieces. This process continues until this day, and with the rapid commercializtion and popularization of the Net as a culture unto itself, will no doubt continue unabated for years to come.
Rheingold's story in The Virtual Community briefly describes the beginnings of this network of networks, which merged with the technology of the BBS (Bulletin Board System), which arose as local connection points of computer users, and followed their own similar pattern of moving from an almost exclusively technical reference medium to email exchanges and discussions on all manner of topics. Commercial online services had sprung up such as Compuserve, providing business and technical information, and eventaully also sprouted popular forums and topics for "interaction" among users. The BBS, the Compuserves (as well as the Prodigies, and the AOLs), and the mushrooming Internet soon found themselves connected. The expansive reach of the Internet had made it a must for online service providers and BBS systems to provide this avenue for their customers. Now the commercial online services process more email through their Internet gateways than within their own membership.
As the Net has grown in popularity, so does the commentary and the analysis from the people who watch culture and write about the trends. Just as with television and other electronic and print media, the psycho-social analysis and social trend forecasts began. The sudden impact of the online phenomenon and the staggering rate of its growth has brought about extreme reactions in all directions. Some see us becoming a cyborg race and less human, some see social and psychological decay, others see dire social consequences as the information rich create an even wider gap between the information poor, and the resulting underprivileged class growing exponentially. None of these are entirely unwarranted concerns, particularly the latter.
But the critics put the cart before the horse in saying that the Net is causing social decay. The opening quote from Rheingold reflects what I think on this matter:
I suspect that one of the explanations for this phenomenon is the hunger for community that grows in the breasts of people around the world as more and more informal public spaces disappear from our real lives. (TVC p.6)
I don't see the net pulling people away, but is it's amazing growth is, in part, symptomatic of the hole that exists in our society as we move further into a socially segregated existence. Our social patterns seem to be away from the more extended social gatherings such as immediate neighborhoods and local shops, and into the larger , suburban chains of shopping, entertainment, and "home oriented" products. As Oldenburg points out in his book "The Great Good Place", we tend to either stay in our house or go "out of the neighborhood" to places of entertainment. Witness, for example the phenomenal growht of "Home Quarters" and "BUilder's Square" as well as home recreation outlets for pools, spas, billiards, etc.
It seems that on the Net there is growing a place where we can revive some of the interaction that seems much rarer now; the kind that writers like Stoll say we are missing becuase we're at our computers. It looks as if there are many people who are building and flocking to "Great Good Places in Cyberspace" where dialogue and discussion happen and are, by nature, quite focused and easily available. Cyber-"cafes" have sprung up to mirror the poularity of the Cafe/Bookstores such as Borders, Barnes and Noble, Hawley-Cooke and Joseph-Beth. In many an online "place", people are finding a community of discourse. Even though there are no bodies seen, and there is no "physical place", there is certainly a "there" there.
I'm not alone in this emotional attachment to an apparently bloodless technological ritual. Millions of people on every continent also participate in the computer-mediated social groups known as virtual communities, and this population is growing fast. Finding the WELL was like discovering a cozy little world that had been flourishing without me, hidden within the walls of my house; an entire cast of characters welcomed me to the troupe with great merriment as soon as I found the secret door. Like others who fell into the WELL, I soon discovered that I was audience, performer, and scriptwriter, along with my companions, in an ongoing improvisation. A full-scale subculture was growing on the other side of my telephone jack, and they invited me to help create something new. (TVC, pp.1-2)
There is something comforting about the idea that there is a kind of "neighborhood" or community on the other side of the wires; just dial in and I'm there. I often go straight to my desk when I get home from work and check my email, and check out some of my favorite spots on the Web. I can do this from my home, where my wife and son are in the next room, and from where I can be called to dinner, or hear what my son is talking about concerning his day at school. I am there, and I can walk away and do routine things in the home, and check back later to see if some correspondence from someone has dropped into my email box. It's also a "social structure" on the net where the expectation is that people are popping in and out when they are finding time to unwind, or have need to read and type in a particular topic. Thus the relationships are non-intruding, which helps us to feel less intimidating.
The online culture described in many of the anti-Net writings seem like such characatures; straw dogs easily inviting suspicion, like many of the subculture groups described in Mark Dery's Escape Velocity. The thing that most of these exposes on online culture ignore is that here the world is represented. The freedom to express one's ideas, hobbies, or theories makes it certain that there will be things we will have no interest in reading. Just pass on by. Like walking through a mall, we needn't stop and notice everything. Rheingold seemed to be responding to these charactrizations of the Net when he observes:
There is no such thing as a single, monolithic, online subculture; it's more like an ecosystem of subcultures, some frivolous, others serious. The cutting edge of scientific discourse is migrating to virtual communities, where you can read the electronic pre-preprinted reports of molecular biologists and cognitive scientists. At the same time, activists and educational reformers are using the same medium as a political tool. You can use virtual communities to find a date, sell a lawnmower, publish a novel, conduct a meeting. (TVC, p.3)
It seems more likely that it is the existing momentum toward social decay that has energized the "flight" to online communications inthe first place. I feel this even more strongly where it concerns the church, and the extreme interest generated by the net in the accessibility of new "forums" and "communities" online. I have received email to my Web site concerning the "danger" of trying to "Substitute" for "real fellowship"; or in trying to "replace" the "real Church" with this "Virtual Church". The question on my mind these past few years is not why these people are finding "online community", or why they are attracted to this "fake community", but why is it that they are finding such online communities so crucial in the first place. It is, in many cases, due to a failure of the churches in our society to provide for community in the first place.
The Literature:
It is my feeling that there are not only important relational needs that are not being met, but that seeking to address some of these needs online contributes to renewing interest in seeking solutions to the traditional churches.
Just as people outside of the church have very little detailed or sophisticated knowledge of the intricacies of theology and relationships in that theological community, so it is with "outsiders" or "newcomers" to the online world. The "feel" of a social reality such as the Internet is one of much deeper personal nature than can be acquired by outside observers. Rheingold concurs:
But it is important to look in more than one corner and see through more than one set of lenses. Before we can discuss in any depth the way CMC technology is changing us as human beings, as communities, and as democracies, we need to know something about the people and places that make the Net what it is. (TVC, p.4)
To Next Section:Psychology (Turkle, Road Warriors, and the Social Implications)