What does “offline” mean?
When was the last time you talked with a friend about something you read/watched/listened to online?
For me, it was this morning. My boyfriend and I discussed what we had just heard on the Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times. We expressed disbelief and shock about the truth behind the recent plane crashes.
Yesterday, we reenacted a comedy skit we had watched on Netflix for his parents.
The list can go on and on.
In this way, the online world is positively influencing our offline experiences. We engage in deep, challenging conversations about the status of the world. Netflix comedy specials help us to relax and laugh after a long week. We look up recipes online to use up our nearly-bad leftovers.
Online and offline works in symbiosis.
This version of reality is reflective of the ideals the world wide web was founded on.
The utopian web
As stated on the World Wide Web Foundation website: “The web was designed to bring people together and make knowledge freely available. Everyone has a role to play to ensure the web serves humanity.”
The web provides us with information about small decisions like what temperature to cook chicken at and information about large, life-changing decisions like where to go for a loan to buy a car.
This information is free and flows naturally. In these ways, the current state of the web is reflective of these founding principles.
But if you read on further, the World Wide Web Foundation includes principles for governments, companies and citizens to follow.
Reading these principles is challenging, given what we know is true about the web today (below is a small sample from each section, emphasis added):
- Governments will keep all of the internet available, all of the time so that no one is denied their right to full internet access.
- Companies will develop technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst so the web really is a public good that puts people first.
- Citizens will build strong communities that respect civil discourse and human dignity so that everyone feels safe and welcome online.
If the web actually reflected these principles — what a world it would be. People would have a safe space to express themselves and could access and transfer information freely to enrich their lives.
The online world would also likely have a great influence on the offline world since the two are intimately connected, bringing about greater acceptance of those around us.
Yet, this world I am describing is a fantasy world.
The reality is that the web is not a protected resource — the evils of the offline world present themselves online, often in unique, menacing ways.
The web has become completely monetized — our clicks, data, profiles are all controlled and managed by large companies. These companies, for the most part, do not follow the principle of creating technology for good. Rather, they create technologies that are addictive and rely on algorithms that provide oppressive content.
The (real) web
Some citizens have created healthy online communities that support their members through the exchange of information.
Oftentimes, however, these communities are threadbare. Rather, quasi-communities are built in the comment sections that can quickly nosedive into nasty discourse about the content creator instead of the content.
The happenings online are not isolated there. Their influence does not stop when we close our laptops or click off our iPhone screens.
Don’t get me wrong — some of these influences are good. See the first women’s march that formed online and transferred over to the offline world in the form of a massive protest. Or the power of hashtags in gaining interest in a topic.
Stuart Jeffries, a writer for the Guardian, details some other ways that the web has been a force for good (most involve data visualization). Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, used these points in his TED talk where he discussed the worldwide spread of open data.
Yet, it does not take much to draft up a list of the way the influence of online behavior has been bad “in the real world”: after many mass shootings, the media will report about the assailant’s online behaviors and the overutilization of geo-tagging has left lasting impacts on the natural world.
Two realities
These two realities are not as separate as we might think. One is not “virtual” and the other “real” existing in parallel. No, they are perpendicular realities, influencing each other, more often than not dragging along the bad parts with the good.
At a cultural level, this is easy to see.
At a personal level, it can be a little more difficult to identify how our online behaviors are influenced by our offline thoughts.
Our own prejudices, biases and self-esteem issues do not magically disappear online. They are present (yet oftentimes hidden) and they are influencing us. Take for example the concept of digital blackface which is often regarded as “not-real racism” since it happens only online.
What this all means
You can type in any combination of the above phrase and learn about the amazing and the horrifying aspects of the internet.
You can be empowered when you post a photo of you without makeup and receive good feedback. You can also be crushed when that same photo receives hateful comments.
These online interactions can have a serious influence on your offline self, and vice versa.
It is crucial that we consider how these two realities are related to and impact one another. Online movements are gaining steam and traction offline — no longer are they “just Internet movements.”
A hashtag may not be a movement, but it is a powerful tool for connecting and uniting…for both good and bad. This sentiment applies to all online behavior.
How do you want your online/offline behaviors to reflect your online/offline self?
Do these behaviors line up with the utopic vision of “the web”?
