We hear all sorts of predictions about how the Internet will enrich our individual lives and promote communication, tolerance, and thus community in our society, but are these promises realistic? In her essay "Welcome to Cyberbia," M. Kadi argues that they are not. Instead, she maintains, the Internet will lead to more fragmentation, not community, because users merely seek out others with the same biases, concerns, and needs as their own. The point is an interesting one, but Kadi seems to overlook that the Internet's uniquely anonymous form of interaction could actually build diversity into community by lowering the barriers of physical appearance in communication.
Writing on the Internet, we can be as anonymous as we like. Unless we tell them, the people we communicate with do not know our age or gender or race, whether we"re fat or thin or neat or sloppy, or what kind of clothes we wear (if we"re wearing clothes at all). Even people who know us personally don't know who we are if we conceal our identities with invented screen names. .
Because of this anonymity, we can communicate freely on the Internet without being prejudged because of our physical attributes. For example, a high school student can participate in a physics discussion group without fear of being dismissed by the group's professional physicists just because of her age. Similarly, an adult man can chat about music with teenagers who might otherwise ignore or laugh at him. A woman I know posed as a man on a snowboarding forum and received none of the hostile responses such as "What does a girl know?" that I got when I innocently revealed my gender on the same forum.
Granted, concealing or altering identities on the Internet can be a problem, as when adults pose as children to seduce or harm them. These well-publicized occurrences say much about the need to monitor children's use of the Internet and be cautious about meeting Internet correspondents.
Critical Analysis of Twelfth Night William Shakespeare Précis Characters: Orsino, Duke of Illyria. Is madly in love with Lady Olivia. He is a kind and gentle man. Viola/Cesario, Young girl who has found herself in Illyria after being shipwrecked. She is disguised as a boy to insure her safety in a strange land. ...
