Nettimers,
In the latest issue of FirstMonday,
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/goldhaber/index.html ,
I have just published a new article that may interest you. Comments
welcome. And please pass the word to any friends or colleagues who might be
interested as well.
Best, Michael
The Mentality Of Homo interneticus: Some Ongian Postulates
by Michael H. Goldhaber
ABSTRACT:Because typical experiences will differ, the mentality of
the typical Internet user, or Homo interneticus, is likely to be
significantly different from that of the typical reader of printed works
or of writing or of the typical member of purely oral cultures. These
differences include deep assumptions about time and space, authority,
property, gender, causality and community.
Introduction
To an extent almost certainly unequaled by other animals, humans
have evolved through cultural change. The psychologist Merlin Donald [1]
suggests that the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens was heavily
influenced by the state of communicative abilities, including speech,
and then writing. He ends with a suggestion that more recent
technologies such as print and television lead to new status for the
species. Slightly earlier, the recently deceased Walter J.Ong [2]
investigated the different mentalities that resulted from orality,
literacy, and the development of print, and showed that these three
mentalities were markedly different.
Though the Internet is very new, given its extremely wide and
rapid spread, it may not be premature to begin to speculate on how the
human mind and therefore, in effect, the human species will be
altered by immersion in this new technology. The thought here is that
the shape of repeated daily experiences and the overall structure in
which they come are bound to have deep effects on how we think.
If, as Ongs work, among much else, suggests, the human mind can
work in very different ways depending on cultural factors such as the
difference between belonging to a purely oral culture and belonging to a
generally literate one, then that has to mean that there are differences
in mental processes that must be reflected in differences in how the
brain is structured and interconnected via nerve paths. That is, groups
of humans from oral cultures and groups from literate cultures though
genetically similar and also similar at birth are, by adulthood,
biologically distinct from one another. Thus it is more than a metaphor
to refer to them as in effect different species.
We may therefore think in terms of Homo oralis, Homo literalis,
Homo typographicus, and then a new stage, which I will argue is just now
emerging, Homo interneticus. (Of course these terms are still slightly
facetious, in that unlike actually distinct biological species, members
of these different groups can interbreed and bear fertile offspring.
Still, considering for instance the popularity of Internet dating among
members of the newest pseudo?species, in fact, their interbreeding with
any of the other groups may be rare.)
........
The complete article is to be found at
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/goldhaber/index.html
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