[Air-l] How is the Internet bad for us?

[Louise Ferguson]

David Brake wrote:
> 
> Here are the categories of harm and offense I have found so far:
> 
> Reinforcement of undesirable attitudes:
> * Anorexia
> * Hate group membership
> * suicide clubs
> 
> Enabler of undesirable behavior:
> * Bullying (would like more lit)
> * Sexual harassment (would like more lit)
> * stalking (would like more lit)
> * Grooming of children by paedophiles (would like lit that provides
> quantitative evidence)

You might consider adding 'adultery', if you consider adultery to be
undesirable behaviour ;-).
I'm thinking of people getting back together with old flames via sites
like Friends Reunited, under the noses of current life partners.
There's been a recent UK television documentary on this phenomenon,
but perhaps too recent for research to have kicked off..

FR and similar sites also enable people to track down others who may
not wish to be  tracked down e.g. violent men tracking down ex-wives
that they have abused; parents or children tracking down those
children or parents who do not wish to have contact. Individuals may
be literally ex-directory (re phone directories, to protect
themselves), but may not realise they are not 'ex directory on the
Internet' until it is too late.
This is related to your stalking category, but maybe separate (the
individuals are well known to each other, whereas stalking is perhaps
more often associated with strangers).

> 
> Providing access to unsuitable/undesirable content
> * Porn
> * gambling (would like more lit)
> * alcohol/smoking and other anti-social advertising (would like more
> lit)
> 
> To this I would add my personal favourite potential problem with the
> Information society:
> 
> * The surveillance society'for your convenience and
> safety' (increased government and commercial surveillance and data
> mining related to your "public face")
> * The slow death of the privacy of your "private face" through
> increased public self-documentation and the self-documentation of
> others you interact with. What happens when significant numbers of us
> are cyborgs like Steve Mann http://wearcam.org/ and we're under
> continuous 'sousveillance'?

There have been cases documented of Friends Reunited etc. being used
by the UK police to collar criminals e.g. a cocaine dealer, later
convicted (he'd been telling his old school-mates about his
activities). The UK police have said they monitor such websites for
evidence of criminal behaviour, and have stated that the public should
assume that this occurs.
Again, this has been covered by TV documentary makers, though don't
know whether any research is under way.


Louise