Struggle For Personal Authenticity

The internet is another example of how we become dehumanized and fractured, for example the labels of "internet chatter", "computer nerd", "internet addict", "computer geek" are associated with individuals who spend considerable time on the internet. These labels compartmentalize us into a less than whole person. .
             In our Modern society there has become a growing impersonality in our relationships with fellow human beings, for instance, the facial expressions of subway goers in Toronto indicate the mood that "I have no time to spend chatting to fellow human beings and I have a destination to reach so I will be quiet". From this impersonality there has come the need for authentic relationships with fellow humans and this is where we substitute real human relationships for such technology as cell phones, pagers, and the Internet. The spirit of abstraction becomes perpetuated by these technologies. For instance, the lonely person goes to the Internet to meet someone because they do not have the courage to meet someone in an authentic manner; this creates a dependency on the Internet and reduces the motivation and courage to meet authentic people in an authentic manner. These technologies also factures us, for there is no guidelines for behavior, thus no rules to reaffirm the self, a pheno!.
             mena that Emile Durkheim called "anomie" or normlessness. .
             In modern times we have become increasingly obsessed with the artifacts and material objects that surround us then the people that surround us. From this growing culture of consumerism and individualism we have tended to abandoned the concept of empathy and have opted for mindless self-indulgence. In our society we have focused more on the "I" then the "other". Individuals would rather spend their time watching Television and Movies then volunteer their time to the community.
             Empathy is "the intellectual, emotional, and imaginative apprehension of another person's situation that takes place without experiencing it", from this definition we see that our culture has fractured us into thinking solely about the "I" instead of the "other".