Not only does interaction with others on the internet create forms of happiness but so do certain websites and features that the internet has to offer. You can listen to music, watch TV and movies, keep up-to-date on your favorite sports teams, read whatever you want, shop, share and edit photos, and so much more. These cyber goodies can influence people to go straight to the internet instead of to the store. This kind of interaction would lead to natural happiness while going to the store would be synthetic. The internet is so versatile that it can create different configurations of happiness depending on how you use it and what you use it for. It seems like everything bad can be good for you too!
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Seeking Happiness on the Internet
The internet is a whole new world that was given to us through technology. People would probe and find new interfaces to interact with. The internet is a new venue for self-expression. The fact that it's participatory can help people connect with others and this kind of social interaction can easily make people happy. This would be synthetic happiness because it's secondary. Expressing yourself and talking to others over the internet is very different than doing so in person, physically face-to-face. The tangible contact with others is natural happiness, it's what we humans pine for... the real stuff.
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I totally agree. It seems like the internet gives us more synthetic than it does real in the sense of giving us what we want to hear or see versus natural happiness where we feel better because we are exposed to the real thing. But then again it all depend son how the user uses it and what response they get. Nice job :)
ReplyDeleteI see what you're getting at, but I'm a bit confused. In the first paragraph you explain how using the internet for social interaction creates synthetic happiness, and how we achieve natural happiness from actual face to face, physical interaction. If this is true, then wouldn't people who are seeking natural happiness want to physically go to stores to shop? And wouldn't shopping online create a form of synthetic happiness?
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying. The internet does give us synthetic happiness because we can create what we want to see, hear, read, etc. I also think that natural happiness can be achieved by this too because if someone were to create a webpage throwing out their thoughts and ideas and a lot of people responded to it then they may get a natural happiness from having others feel the same way as they do. I don't know, it's a lot to think about and I think that both ways of thinking are correct.
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