The Loss of Individuality

            As millions of college students, including myself, use the Internet each day to access academic assignments, network socially, read newspapers or play online games, we contribute to the creation of a “proto-electronic” social and cultural society. Unfortunately, as Sven Birkerts discusses in Is Cyberspace Destroying Society? and Into the Electronic Millennium, this society has “morbid symptoms,” one of which is a loss of sense of self.  As my friends and I allow the Internet to permeate every aspect of our lives, Birkerts believes that we are losing our individuality.

            Connectedness and communication are two principle reasons that college students use the Internet. We are more interested in becoming collectively linked selves than individuals, and Birkerts believes that we are in “the first stages of a process of social collectivization that will over time all but vanquish the idea of isolated individuality” (Birkerts).  He argues that in order to develop as an individual, a person needs to spend time alone. However, since college students feel the need to be constantly connected, we no longer take the time to visit a museum on our own or to read a book. According to Birkerts, reading is essential, as a book “constitutes a means of transportation through the space of experience…in the direction of autonomy, in the direction of privacy” (Birkerts). A book will foster intellectual growth or inspire a newfound passion; however, it should not be read on Sparknotes or other online summaries as this destroys the experience. Likewise, Birkerts emphasizes that my friends and I should stop communicating through the Internet and instead speak face-to-face, as “language is the soul’s ozone layer, and we thin it at our peril” (Birkerts). Having conversations in person allows for individual growth as you subject yourself to peoples’ moral, intellectual, and global perspectives as well as their emotional responses. Email and Facebook messaging have no soul compared to real human interaction.

            Are we in a movement toward “electronic collectivization” with a loss of individuality? Quite possibly. How do we prevent Birkerts’ fear that we will have no idea of what wisdom might be or where it might be found in the future? We engage in the experiential continuum that the educational theorist John Dewey discusses in Exploration & Experience. We read and analyze influential books. We engage in face-to-face dialogue with professors and friends. We explore the cultural diversity in the world as we find our passion and our purpose. My search, and that of my friends, cannot be achieved through the Internet.

Works Cited:

Birkerts, Sven. "Into the Electronic Millennium." Boston Review. Oct. 1991. Web.