Constructing Indentity In The Computer Age Essay

, Research Paper

Today, we are living in computer age. Computers can be seen everywhere from kitchen to the living room, from small house to giant company. Computer technology has improved our lives. It will continue to affect our future, which will lead to an easier, less complicated lifestyle, with more job opportunities and their benefits. Computers help people in many different ways and also connect people on all over the world together through out the Internet.

The internet is one of the most useful things in the world today. For instance, we can stay in home and shop through Internet, and even send things like birthday cards by the web of Hallmark. Moreover, we can talk, chat, or send instant messages to the other people so we can learn more about the culture of different races, religions, and nationalities on the world. By Internet we can get as much information as we want. However, not all of the information that we get from the web page or other people is real or credential because people can put incorrect things on it. Therefore, we will take the risk of getting the fake or false information.

The technology of Internet also help us understanding other cultures. By logging on the internet, or chatting with the others we learn more about the different cultures from one place to anther. However, there are some dishonest people in chat room. People on the net are not always honest people. In the internet Indian Wars by Glen Martin, a white software consultant running the Native American seminar and chat room offered by AOL, Rapp, said Basically, what we did was done in fun (127) after he was discovered that he was dishonest, he wasn t a native American. Rapp was a host of Native American seminar, discussing about Native American culture while he was not a member of any Indian group. All he was saying were fraud. As Marc Towersap, one of the first Indians to query about Rapp s tribal credentials, said There is a difference between adopting online identities ad perpetrating fraud (Martin, 125) and he also said Rapp was promoting herself as a genuine native elder, and AOL was making money on the chat room because a lot of people logged on to it (Martin, 125). AOL, a biggest Internet service on the world, didn t care about what Rapp talking and discussing was true or not. They just wanted to make money as much as they can. Miller, one of the Native activists went against Rapp s dishonest and faking actions. She was trying to protect her own culture from being fraud by saying We are not looking for convert. It isn t about shinning people-it s about keeping what little we have left. She also insisted there s a palpable world of truth out there-Native truth, tradition, and history-that must be protected from the vagaries of casual date-play (Martin, 126). In order to protect the Native American culture from fraud, the Native community tried to construct network system linking up to 550 nations. Shanker, a Native American, said if we don t define who we are on the net, other people will do it for us. (131) By saying that Shanker implied that Native American community must have their own room on cyber space to keep their culture from any distortions.

The Internet Technology has a great impact on our understanding culture, We could easily access to the tons of web page to widen out knowledge about different culture from race to race, region to region, religions to religions on the world. Moreover, we also can enter the cat room and talk directly with the people who are not the same culture with us. However, We have to take the risk to get information from the internet because it could be true of fake. We have to be careful to identity that we are talking to in the chat room and make sure that we get the correct information.