DEFINING COMMUNITIES

Defining Communities

Defining Communities

Introduction

This essay is based on defining online communities. The article “Someone to Watch Over Me” by Theodora Stites presents information regarding the effects and impacts of internet on individuals. The Internet emerged to share information and access it remotely, then came rooms of chat, e-mail, advertising, services for older and so on. Most of these new applications have a definite purpose, or at least harmless, however, is the fact that latent users exceed the use of all these benefits, making the Internet a mixed blessing. This essay will highlight the negative consequences presents in the article related to of online communities.

Discussion

An Online Community is a group of people comprising the following elements:

They want to interact to meet their needs or perform roles.

They share a purpose which is the main reason for the online community.

Online community is defined by distinctive aspects:

The online community as a place: in which individuals can maintain relations of social or economic nature.

Individuals tend to be symbolically linked to the online community, creating a sense of belonging.

The main objectives of the virtual community are:

Exchange information

Provide support (empathy, express emotion)

Talk and socialize informally through simultaneous communication

Discuss, usually through the participation of moderators.

Theodora Stites in his words concentrated on the attachment and belongingness towards the online communities. It was because each one enables to connect to people with different levels of social intimacy. This is, however, a serious concern whether the use of online communities is helping us to connect or disconnecting from the social life. Theodora Stites also highlighted the point of planned media campaign with the use of every profile.

Given the nature of the Internet in the article, such as economics, anonymity, and easy access, the growing everyday problems have led to psychological dependence and behavioral changes that lead individuals to detach themselves from the surroundings. Online communities lead individuals to enter a society "virtual" to minimize physical contact, leading to alterations in the individual's behavior, for example, depression caused by loneliness, which leads a person to be in front of the monitor for hours making it even more depressed and lonely.

Theodora Stites emphasized on many negative consequences of online communities, such as, state of altered consciousness (total attentional focus), irritability in case of failure, inability to move off the screen, etc. The environment in which it operates also carries a number of negative psychological changes, consisting of mood disorders, anxiety or impatience. ...