Identity crises?

Today in lecture we discussed Nicholas Carr's book "The Shallows." In this book, Carr describes how there are three views to look at technology, or the internet more specifically, these three views were substantive, Instrumentalist, and pluralist. The substantive theory describes technology as a substance or thing to itself, having profound effects on human nature (the borg hypothesis). The instrumentalist theory describes how technology is only good or bad with respect to who specifically uses it. Pluralist theory describes how we have to wait on technology, how users modify technology into something the original creators did not for see, like the cell phone having all the capabilities it does: music, pictures, apps, and etc.

Carr states how he rejects the instrumentalist theory, it is a superficial analysis fo the problem. He believed it changed the way we think and believing in this theory is just being a numb stance, the problem is becoming more and more invisible to "us." I would have to agree on this fact that internet is not neutral, all the technology was created for a certain purpose, and people don't realize they are being sucked in.

I ran across a small article titled "Mind Prison: Internet Addiction"; this article I think helps push the fact that the internet is a drug that is very addicting unless used in moderation. According to this article, studies have revealed that there is a strong connection between excessive internet use and serious mental disorders. They try to explain this from an individuals identity.

Our identity is what makes us who we are, it is what makes us different and unique from one-another. When we get involved too in-depth with personal internet usage, we often create an entire new identity for ourselves, an identity that we "wish" we had. We do this because technology acts as a barrier from our true selves to others. Doing this, we have two different identities to keep up with, and after a while, these two identities could very well be mixed up, causing us to forget who we truly are, losing our "true" identity. People who lose their identity become more depressed, no goals or desires, all they want to do is live their "fantasy" identity. This is an identity crises, something that technology has made for us, and yet we keep making more "involved" technology inventions. Will this ever be fixed or at least monitored? Should "we" humans have to look up to technology for our well being? What ever happened to normal social life? I understand that these are some extremes for some people, but its happening to more and more people, this is a world problem that needs to be dealt with.

http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02049/problems_2.htm