23 Jan 09 Tolerance and the internet

Is the internet creating a society where we are more tolerable of each other?

Through the internet we can easily reach like-minded individuals. This causes already established social groups to become even more isolated in their own doings. In today’s age, you are less forced to fit yourself into a group, because the social groups are more readily accessible. Gamers can find gamers. Sport fans, can find sport fans and so forth.

Are we losing face to face tolerance for people who are not like us? Because we can find like-minded people, we aren’t forced to head into society and live/work/be around people who is not like us. In the past, where similar people could not easily flock together, one learned to tolerate the different kinds of people that you face day to day in society.

So, one can say… Surely, the case is that the Internet is creating a society who is less tolerable towards each other…

I beg to differ. Because face to face confrontations with people from other societies occur less in real life, it is definitely happening on the internet. A muslim sport fan will meet with a christian sport fan on the internet per se. It is bringing lots of people together and what I think is happening is that we are indeed learning tolerance for other people through shared interests in a safer environment.

If hiccups occur, one can easily back away. In real life, the emotions are more real and in your face, which could lead to things you wouldn’t normally do as opposed to talking it out over the internet. With the likes of Wikipedia, one could also learn much more about where people come from and thus learn more tolerance.

Am I making sense, or am I contradicting myself here?

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