Interesting paper responding to the idea, popularized by Borgmann and Dreyfus, that online communities are deficient, because they do not enable real interactions. Dreyfus writes, for example, "Like a simulator, the Net manages to capture everything but the risk... " Maybe. But I like Ulises Mejias's rejoinder (also cited by James Farmer: "Online experiences are indeed no substitute for the 'real' thing: allowing computer code to assume a large degree of social agency does sever ontological ties to the offline world. But code can also assume social agency that affords ontological nearness in different (and potentially enhancing) ways. Clearly, as numerous seemingly contradictory studies demonstrate, virtuality can be a site for both alienation and engagement, anomie and identity formation, commodification and commitment. The social agency of code can augment the social agency of humans in powerful new ways, and the challenge is to design systems which integrate the two in ways that encompass online and offline spheres of action."
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