The Social Worlds of the Web

摘要

We know this Web world. We live in it, particularly those of us in developed countries. Even if we do not go online daily, we live with it- our culture is imprinted with online activity and vocabulary: e-mailing colleagues, surfing the Web, posting Web pages, blogging, gender-bending in cyberspace, texting and instant messaging friends, engaging in e-commerce, entering an online chat room, or morphing3 in an online world. We use it-to conduct business, find information, talk with friends and colleagues. We know it is something separate, yet we incorporate it into our daily lives. We identify with it, bringing to it behaviors and expectations we hold for the world in general. We approach it as explorers and entrepreneurs, ready to move into unknown opportunities and territory; creators and engineers, eager to build new structures; Utopians for whom "the world of the Web" represents the chance to start again and "get it right" this time; utilitarians, ready to get what we can out of the new structures; and dystopians, for whom this is just more evidence that there is no way to "get it right."