Computer-mediated Communication and Criticisms of the Internet

by Paul Sollie

Going on the insight of existentialist and phenomenological philosophy, the American philosopher Hubert Dreyfus has launched a vigorous criticism of the 'computer revolution', the Internet, and computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the past decades. However, it is often hard to spell out the practical and moral consequences of his arguments. The weakness of the arguments seems to be related to more general features of technology development and its ethical evaluation, such as the fact that technological devices open up new and complementary possibilities (for instance of communication) without necessarily taking away others. In this paper I discuss whether and if so, how, CMC reflects, influences and changes fundamental structures of human communication. This analysis is carried out against the background of Karl Jaspers's existentialist philosophy of communication and technology. Jaspers's philosophy will be explored and presented as a framework that provides fruitful insights for debates on CMC.