A somewhat disconcerting thought crossed my mind the other day. I was wishing that I could access the Internet through my mind. Why be tied down to electronics when you could just surf the net in your brain? While the convenience of that scenario still appeals to me, the idea of it raises some important questions.

The use of social networking sites and social media has changed the way all of us communicate. There is no arguing that it is convenient and often times fulfilling. Personally, I can spend a large chunk of time on an online forum without realizing how fast the minutes are slipping away. The online world holds a lot of appeal due to its never ending possibilities and lack of restraints.

What though, does this do to our real world? As explained in The Return of the Village, social networking has brought people together in a way that we could not have dreamed of years ago. There is a lot of value in that however, does it take away from our physical world?

I know I am guilty of losing myself in cyberspace more than I should. Just the other day, I was driving and missed my exit. By the time I realized this, I had to take a completely different route which added an extra 40 minutes to my trip. The reason I missed my exit is because my head was literally…. in cyberspace. I was running through the files in my mind from a blog to a social group I participate in and so on.

Making friends nowadays is really quite easy. Log on to a computer and you are bound to find a friend somewhere. A concern I have for myself is that way too often, I find it easier to just shoot the breeze with my online friends rather than pick up the telephone to call a “real” friend. There are other times that I choose not to attend a social event during the day because it would cut in to my important time in my online world.

To recognize some of these issues makes me think there is still hope for me. Take care to not put off relationships in the physical world. There is so much to see and do offline and those are the instances that will create memories.

Although there is a wonderland of opportunities in cyberspace, do you ever have the same fears that it has the possibililty of taking over one’s “real world” existence?

Hot on the scene this morning is this post on the New York Times trying to get Amber Naslund to change her editorial because it criticized an aspect of their publishing process which they wished to conceal. The details are well documented in her post, but that’s not the issue I wish to discuss.

I think this issue shows a basic desire that people have for media to become transparent. I recall the Wal-Mart scandal involving the fake blog and makes me think about how angry people were, not because the blog was coming from a corporate slant, but that it pretended to not have that slant. Essentially, what Wal-Mart (and the New York Times) is being criticized for is attempting to spin their image in a certain way. They are being criticized for failing to be transparent online.

What does it mean to be “transparent”? Why do we within the scene seem to feel more tolerance towards certain kinds of spinning (or sphinning, as the case may be) than others? We hail Kevin shaving his head for charity, knowing damn well it is a great PR stunt, and then gleefully watch it, blog about it, and retweet it. We will turn right around and ridicule other celebrities and corporations for doing similar things.

Why is this? What is the difference? What does this demand not for objectivity or lack of bias, but for transparency about that bias, reveal about our ethical intuitions involving the online world?