After watching this movie and how the tale of Niv progressed, many thoughts were swarming into my head. The most interesting to me is the ability of the internet to make lying easier. With advances in social networking and other online interactions, lying to people has become easier and easier. By not having to physically be there with the other person, people are missing the eerie feeling you get when you lie to someone's face. Without this interaction people are just typing away telling whoever they are talking to just exactly what they want to hear.
This brings to mind earlier in the school year when we discussed the objective and subjective principles. The topic of lying came up and we concluded that if lying became a generally acceptable practice then there would simply just be little to no truth in the world. That is a scary thought, but one that is not too unfamiliar. There is a saying to not believe everything you see or read on the internet, and that is a good saying to follow. However in regards to social networking, I believe it is the idea that it is another person seems to make us more gullible. For we normally don't just assume people to be liars so we grant them an amount of trust and respect until they prove otherwise. As this movie showed, there are those out there that take advantage of this assumption. The relationship in this movie in my opinion was legitimate in the aspect of the two people were sharing feelings of true care for one another, however I do see the actions of Angela morally wrong. To me, the fact that she lied on so many levels and also knowingly toyed, for lack of a better word, with Niv's emotions was terribly wrong.
I agree for the most part with what your saying but I do not think you can place the blame solely on the liars of the internet. It seems to me that as technology and the internet become a more vital aspect in people's live, the more passive they become to the entire system. Basically, people are becoming passive readers, which leads them to believe whatever they read on the internet without verifying the accuracy of the information. Therefore, I believe Nev is partly at fault for not questioning the entire situation until he was too emotionally invested. There are a multitude of ways to verify whether the person you're chatting with is real or a phony so there are no excuses. Moreover, I do not believe the liars of the internet are all that bad; overall, your questioning of their statements could lead you to further research the topic thus further educating you on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the social networking aspect adds a new twist to the situation. It is easy to read things on the internet, look at the source and the credibility of the information, and conclude that the information is trustworthy or not trustworthy. "Don't believe everything you read on the internet" is something we were told growing up, and it does ring true, but the difference is that now we are able to differentiate what is true, what is not true, and at the very least we can classify something as being in a gray area. The danger of believing everything that is on the internet, for most people, I would argue is now void. However, as you mentioned, when adding a real person into the mix, it becomes difficult. With virtual interaction, communication, and the involvement of emotions, it can be increasingly difficult to tell true from false. Stories can be made up and pictures can be stolen or fabricated. People want to believe what they want to believe. With this being the case, we need to guard against these types of things and teach our children to be on the lookout- it will only increase in intensity as time goes on.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the social networking aspect adds a new twist to the situation. It is easy to read things on the internet, look at the source and the credibility of the information, and conclude that the information is trustworthy or not trustworthy. "Don't believe everything you read on the internet" is something we were told growing up, and it does ring true, but the difference is that now we are able to differentiate what is true, what is not true, and at the very least we can classify something as being in a gray area. The danger of believing everything that is on the internet, for most people, I would argue is now void. However, as you mentioned, when adding a real person into the mix, it becomes difficult. With virtual interaction, communication, and the involvement of emotions, it can be increasingly difficult to tell true from false. Stories can be made up and pictures can be stolen or fabricated. People want to believe what they want to believe. With this being the case, we need to guard against these types of things and teach our children to be on the lookout- it will only increase in intensity as time goes on.
ReplyDeleteYes lying on the Internet is easy but it all depends on the person who is being lied to. For someone to openly believe everything that someone on the Internet is saying is true is basically crazy. Especially when it comes to having an online relationship.
ReplyDeleteI would agree strongly with you that the internet has made it a lot easier to lie. With smart phones and internet there has been a big generation gap from ourselves to our parents and will be the same with our children. What i have seen with people my own age is there is a lot less eye contact when talking to others and short choppy sentence conversations. With all this there is a dis personalization between people. This is a major problem for me because i feel that if we had a society that is more interactive face to face of even verbally instead of text message and twitter posts, then there would be less problems along with less communication issues. This also would help people with public speaking and overall have a better health because interaction with others helps us grow and share good ideas and problems to get over.
ReplyDelete