Tuesday, February 10, 2004 |
13:28 - Giving it a name
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/SiliconInsider/SiliconInsider-1.html
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Here's a fascinating little angle, forwarded by Brian D., on what the Internet has become, illustrated in the schism between two factions: the "Worknet" and the "Playnet", a divide that's becoming clearer as the digital culture matures, and may well be the defining conceptualization of cyberspace that actually ends up reinventing our real-world existence.
The Worknet is instrumentalist, goal-oriented and largely characterized by commercial and retail sites, but also news sites, information portals, and even political posting sites.
One senses that the inhabitants of the Worknet (as opposed to those who just drop by to shop) are typically older, less educated but more experienced, and politically centrist, liberal or conservative.
Most of all, the Worknet is thoughtful — it is about learning things, getting stuff done, staying on top of what’s happening. In the Internet landscape, the Worknet is suburbia and the city downtown by day.
The other Internet might be called the “Playnet,” because it is the Internet we largely use when are just having fun — and because it reflects a distinctly emotional view of cyberspace. The Playnet is experiential, self-directed and largely characterized by chat rooms, .alt sites, games of all kinds and the cult of celebrity.
One senses that the inhabitants of the Playnet (as opposed to those who just drop by to play) are typically younger, more educated but less experienced, and tend towards libertarianism, political extremism and anarchism.
The Playnet is emotional — it is about breaking the rules, experiencing the novel and taboo, becoming viscerally engaged, and even about killing time. It is about feeling. In the Internet landscape, the Playnet is rural districts, college towns, and the city downtown by night.
In other words, this isn't just your standard "Left vs. Right" or "old vs. young" or "elite vs. the masses" or any of the usual classifications that we're used to. It's not even about the technologically empowered vs. the powerless and clueless, because both the Worknet and the Playnet have representatives from both.
In other words, the divide isn't about what we are, it's about what we do. It hinges on whether we prefer to spend our time doing serious work, or relaxing in worlds of our own creation.
Some sites and phenomena immediately sprung to mind as I read this. Something Awful and bash.org and MMORPGs are all Playnet things. And you can't get much more Worknet than USS Clueless or Slashdot.
We all spend time in both worlds, some leaning more toward one than the other. (I run large sites that represent both Worknet and Playnet communities.) Yet it's not clear that this divide will factionalize people the way that politics or race or education traditionally have done; this is a divide that doesn't prevent anyone from slipping effortlessly from one side to the other on nearly a moment's notice. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if people start thinking along these lines more and more in coming years; after all, the Internet ain't going away.
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