"Off-line, many of us are restricted and limited by the realities of life-- by bosses, the companies we work for, the social conventions of the places we live. That makes the Net all the more exhilarating. Online, we are free to make our own way, unchecked and unbound."
    -- Jon Katz, Columnist. 3/21/1999
    http://www.slashdot.org

  Published in 1996, one might argue that Doheny-Farina's book is already outdated due to the pace of technological advances, and to exponential growth in the computing industry, thereby making his arguments moot when discussing the validity and worth of the Internet. One might also attribute its narrow focus to the supposedly more primitive state of the Net at the time, now surpassed by the leaps and bounds accorded it in the march of progress over the last three years. Neither of these are adequate excuses for the limited scope and negative portrayal of the Net.

  Rather, the author merely seems out-of-touch with the full extent of the cyber-community, thereby underestimating the influence, diversity and capacity of the Internet. His limited experience has taken him to the doorstep of the full electronic community (akin to the way America On-Line works today), but not beyond.

  Doheny-Farina used his experience with MOOs, MUDs (Multi-User Domains/Dungeons), and more focused community networks to form his opinions of the current and potential worth of the Internet. Although he refers to the ability of some networks to serve as jumping points from which one can enter the greater realm of the World Wide Web, he fails to take the plunge himself, all the while implying that the Web and enveloping Internet are superfluous portions of cyberspace, unworthy of exploration.

  Doheny-Farina's area of expertise is only a very small subset of the electronic community, yet he uses his experience with this microcosm to judge the whole, the former being by no means a definitive or all-inclusive representation of its diversity and scope. Because of his failure to experience and then incorporate a more personalized impression of the larger scope of the Internet, he has cut short his own ability to assess the full dangers or virtues of the on-line world. Although he may have seen the elements of danger found in cyberspace, threatening to overtake the sense of community in our geo-physical environments, he has prevented himself from discovering many positive aspects of the electronic world. What Doheny-Farina assumed were omissions, and continuously lamented, may well exist but remained undiscovered as a result of his limited experience. By translating his opinions of this narrowly focused realm into a theory of the Internet as a whole, he has created a set of blinders for himself which prevent him from surveying his topic in an unbiased manner.

  The first of thirteen chapters delves into the nature of social bonding, and the dichotomy between geo-physical and virtual communities. Doheny-Farina claims that the media's exaltation of individuality only encourages isolation, and that once isolated, we look to build a new (and perhaps replacement sense of) community on-line. By taking part in a virtual community, we permit ourselves to withdraw from the dying physical community: when done in excess, his complaints are valid. On the other hand, he seems not to realize the potential for a second community, the virtual realm, to work side-by-side in peaceful co-existence with the geo-physical arena of the first.

  One of the stylistic difficulties of the text lies in Doheny-Farina's use of rhetoric to discredit any of the 'Net's possibly redeeming qualities. He often mentions a statement made in support of the net, and then within a couple of sentences or pages quickly refers to a fairly outlandish parable drawn from a point tangent to the original argument. By discrediting the tangents, he casts suspicion by association on the original point's validity. His coined verbiage only helps to substantiate his patronizing tone, using words with seemingly negative or derogatory connotations such as "cybernetic hypemeisters." (16)

  These tactics can be illustrated using a section found in Chapter Two, "Immersive Virtualists and Wired Communitarians." A guest on NPR is quoted as saying "...you get the feel of creating a community based on your interests rather than arbitrary geography." (20) Yet on the next page, Doherty-Farina offers the following quote from William Mitchell, saying this is only representative of our current will towards virtuality.

...you will have acquired a collection of interchangeable, snap-in organs controlled by exonerves... You will have become a modular, reconfigurable, infinitely extensible cyborg.

We are presented us with an obviously ludicrous image of ourselves as reprogrammable cyborgs shortly after the previous quote lauding the ability of the Net to connect people of similar interests. If the reader pauses for a moment to follow the author's train of thought, the reader might realize that Doheny-Farina has made quite a leap from an on-line community of like interests to Mitchell's futuristic world. By arguing the validity of these tangents in such proximity to a quote affirming the validity of the Net, he can easily discount the potential worth of the virtual world by discrediting the worst case scenario of a minor offshoot of the issue.

  One of his more consistent fears, surfacing in both the second and third chapters, involves this view that the Net and its addictive, virtual nature will cause the extinction of both other communications media and life as we know it. To deny the possibility of change would be ridiculous, and as mentioned before, such fears are not ungrounded. Some predictions, such as the burgeoning extinction of the mediums of television, radio, or newspaper (none of which disappeared after its successor's advent) seem unfounded. Yet he makes a rather good argument for the loss of the old ways of life through increased commercialization.

  In "Virtual Vermont," Doheny-Farina discusses how we have commercialized the idea of "Vermont," imagining beautiful fall foliage, or stopping by the side of the road to purchase some of the fresh produce: perhaps an apple. Yet our system has become so globally mobile, with mass production and increased efficiency, that the very apple we bite into as an example of authentic, local produce is not truly local, but rather imported from elsewhere. We promote the imitation as the "real thing," and as the former usurps the latter, we lose the reality we are trying to promote. This problem is encountered across the nation and the globe, as we make authenticity a commodity to be traded and capitalized upon, like the tourism industry infiltrating the Pennsylvania Dutch of Lancaster County, PA.

  Doheny-Farina has lit upon a rightfully touchy subject, but however worthy of analysis, it seems out-of-place in our discussion of a wired neighborhood. Although problematic, as devil's advocate one must admit that it is only consistent with the progression of technology, a continual trend towards encouraging the new over the old. This concept of novelty as a threat to the past continues to be readdressed throughout the text.

  The conflict between on-line and off-line life continues in Chapters Four through Seven. He speaks of his experience with MOOs and MUDs (Multi-User Domains/Dungeons) where one can create one's own virtual space or interact with others in a role-playing game, hosted in some virtual, non-existent world. This sort of virtual community is detrimental to healthy inter-individual interaction, due to the ease with which one can become addicted, becoming increasingly involved in an electronic community while withdrawing into isolation from one's own physical environs.

  There are acknowledged advantages to a virtual community, such as the ability to telecommute. It gets rid of the commute, and allows the employee to work during the times most convenient to them. Unfortunately, the constant presence of the office in the home makes it easier for one to work excessive overtime hours, again a temptation and a threat to family life as they withdraw into their electronic realm. We must therefore maintain our geo-physical communities, and make sure that our default state, as Doheny-Farina counsels, is off-line.

  Doherty-Farina appears intimidated by the vast and uncharted territory the Net represents. To assuage his fears and perhaps unconsciously boost his own feelings of self-importance, he therefore rejects any potential virtues of the Net, choosing to acknowledge its only worth as a means by which one might encourage further cohesion in the individual's geo-physical sphere/neighborhood. He concludes The Wired Neighborhood with the following sentences.

The net, like the glowing city I gazed at, is a seductive electronic specter. Take part in it not to connect to the world but to connect to your city, your town, your neighborhood. (p.188)

The essence of his closing statement can easily be read as a call to reject the temptation of the world, counseling us to withdraw into the cocoons of our local neighborhoods. If we are required to use this vast unknown territory, use it only to become one with your immediate surroundings, for they are more real and more important than anything found external to your world. Unfortunately, although I believe that Doheny-Farina addresses some of the Net's drawbacks, he has failed to provide an unbiased critique of the pro's and con's of the virtual community.