O Brave New World: The Dark Side of Cyberspace

Abstract

This article focuses on some of the negative aspects of cyberspace and cyberculture. First, it offers an examination of the impact of our use of social media, and Facebook in particular, on our psyches, pointing out that users of social media can be thought of as audiences. These audiences and information about them can be sold to marketers and advertisers. Next, it offers a case study of a widespread social problem in Japan, more than a million media-obsessed Japanese young men (and some young women), the hikikomori, who shut themselves off from society for months or years at a time. This is followed by a discussion of the impact of mobiles, primarily smartphones, on American adolescents, some of whom text one hundred messages a day to their friends. The effects of the enormous amount of face-time young people spend with screens - around ten hours per day - are also considered. Finally, there is an examination of the impact that Amazon.com, the leading e-commerce Internet site, has had on American shopping practices and American culture and society. The article concludes with a discussion of the work of Hubert Dreyfus about some negative effects of the Internet and, by implication, cyberspace and cyberculture, which, he argues, drain life of meaning.