§ two: network technology connects us. network technology alienates us.

Networks, perhaps best embodied by the Internet, are tremendously powerful things. They expose the connections and relationships that surround knowledge. They create the possibility of communication and contact with people with whom we might otherwise never have interacted. They allow us to enter new types of relationships.

Yet networks also annihilate physical space. In a network, we exist only in informational space. This has numerous implications for our relationships with others. Perhaps the largest is that we are only aware of others in as much as others make themselves aware. Take an Internet discussion board, for example. Though thousands of people may read the discussion board, only 100 may actually post on it. There is little, and sometimes no, evidence that anyone beyond those 100 posters actually participates in the discussion. Lurkers, as non-posters are often called, do not take up space. They do not leave footprints. And, unless they speak up, they are not recognized.