Critiques, as opposed to mere descriptions, of internet culture emphasize the informality or (more judgmentally) the vulgarity of our promiscuous messages. These communications, in their ease, inexpensiveness, and abundance, suffer less pressure than before to be or seem important, meaningful, or definitive—in other words, to last in our minds. In their clamorous competition with one another, they more often strive to be the first noticed…. TV [has nothing] on porn sites or the comments sections of blogs when it comes to the solicitation of lust or anger….

I have noticed that it’s of no great use telling myself, when I go online, that I should muster my willpower against the sirens of amusement, distraction, and curiosity. I do better at not spending too much time at my computer if I remind myself how comparatively shallow and irregular my enjoyment of the internet is. The truth is that we are often bored to death by what we find online.

From a review by Benjamin Kunkel in n+1 magazine of three new books on our uneasy relationship with the internet [via Arts and Letters Daily].

I resisted getting a computer until 2002. I say “resisted” because there were so many cheerleaders singing the praises of the internet. It’s my ornery nature, to resist embracing something that is supposedly great — I don’t like having something shoved at me, great or not — but that, it seemed to me at the time, was focused on interests that were not my own. Like, for example, at least in its earliest days, a near-universal fascination with technological innovation for its own sake. Technology is just a tool, it should be used in the interest of creating something more thought-provoking or more beautiful than what was available before, with older technology. Like, uh, pen and paper. (What would Shakespeare have done if he had had access to the internet? Would he have written even better plays, sparked by the wealth of available inspiration, or would he have frittered away his time posting updates on Twitter and videotaping his cat’s antics for YouTube?)

The truth is there’s plenty of thought-provoking substance on the internet. It’s just that it’s so easy and alluring to be tempted away by the flashy and silly. When I was less aware that this was somewhat of a given, a couple of years ago, I got sucked in but felt guilty about it. I found that given the choice of slogging through another depressing and upsetting article on economic inequality, or chiming in on a ridiculous and hilarious discussion, going on in real time and right at my fingertips, about which hair color best suits Billie Joe, I chose… guess?

I can’t count how many online videos and photos of Green Day I’ve looked at. Probably hundreds. I’m glad they’re posted here, on the ole interwebs, but looking at them quickly becomes a compulsion, only because it’s hard not to sate my curiosity when I know something is out there and I haven’t seen it yet. When I was a fan of Green Day in 1994, and no less obsessed than I am now, which I should be — but am not (okay, maybe a little) — embarrassed to admit, I had their music and nothing else, except for the occasional magazine article. I didn’t (and don’t) have cable so I didn’t even see their videos on MTV. But I never felt that I was missing out. My enjoyment of the band was much more personal and therefore more satisfying. Now, (no) thanks to the internet, enjoying Green Day has become an emotional minefield.

Which brings me to the second and central issue about the internet: it’s crowded with people that I wouldn’t normally have ever come in contact with. That seems like a good thing in theory, but so many seem to be brimming with anger and self-righteous stupidity. Or at least that’s the side of themselves that they choose to bring out when they come online. That’s nothing new of course, but steering clear of it has been harder than I would have expected.

My own experience with the online world is similar to what Kunkel describes, but its most defining feature has not been boredom or distraction, nor annoyance at the shameless bids for my attention, though I have certainly contended with plenty of that. It’s been getting sucked in by the emotional vortex: making connections with people I would never have known in real life and naively thought I could connect with in spite of our fairly large differences, which now strikes me as a mistake begging to happen.

In the early days of the internet, probably because it was a new medium and people were more wary of it, there was an understanding that relationships formed online were unreliable. It might have been unfounded paranoia about internet stalkers, or a vague fear of unseen weirdos who could hide behind their computer screens and pretend to be something they were not. But as the internet became more familiar, the people populating it began to seem less sinister, or not at all sinister, since they were the same people you might see every day at the store or dropping off their kids at school.

But getting to know someone online leaves out an essential element of actually getting to know a person, the part where you can see how they carry themselves when they’re around you, or when they interact with others. In real life, I doubt I would have befriended housewives who refer to Billie Joe Armstrong as “fucktacular”, especially if they also have disturbing right-wing points of view. But on the internet it seemed like harmless fun. And, here’s the rub: I didn’t want to be judgmental. Is there a phenomenon like white-liberal guilt that could be called “liberal-intellectual guilt”? I don’t want to be a snob. I don’t want to look down on someone because they are not terribly smart or open-minded (that alone seems like a terrible thing to say). But the truth is I don’t know what to do with someone who is intransigent in their ignorance and holds onto it like a badge of honor. I am a snob. Maybe I just need to accept that, and suffer much less heartache.