An Existential Internet?

     Reading Sartre, the biggest takeaways I got from his writings were as follows:
-Humans are essentially free beings.
-We freely take projects upon ourselves in order to create the life we believe we want.
-Our material precedes our essence, thus, we create our essence through our actions and projects.

     I've been thinking about our discussion yesterday about the internet and the amazingly terrifying thing that it can be. We have more information literally at our fingertips than most humans have previously ever had before. When I started applying this thought to Sartre, I was curious. What sort of existential projects do we as humans take on through the medium of the internet? I think the biggest impact these internet projects have on are: our culpability, our presence, and our relationships.

   We discussed briefly the question of culpability on the internet. I believe Dr. J said something along the lines of, "If you want to see the dreadful side of society, just spend some time in a comments section when people can be anonymous." This public anonymity is something people could not have easily foreseen. The idea of this clash of the public versus private self is very uniquely shown in the internet. I think it's interesting to see that the internet allows people to take on multiple projects of self. If someone has the project of being a trustful person, he or she must spend time continually being worthy of trust. However, people encountered in person can know nothing of what friends do online. We've brought up public/private self before (such as in the TV show Dexter, his public self is virtuous whereas his private self is a serial killer) however, the internet almost gives people a venue to be vicious and cruel without having to accept those terms in their public life.

   The internet also has an interesting impact on our sense of self or presence. The idea of a person having almost an entire cyber identity was mentioned yesterday, and this is reflected in almost everything we do online: from the movies we choose to say are our favorites on Facebook, to a linkedin online resume for job applications. I'm curious if this is sort of an artificial project. If someone wants to be outgoing, they could pretend to be online, but not actually be outgoing in person. One can succeed in online projects while failing in their day to day projects. (It is much easier to press a send button versus actually trying to approach someone to talk).

    I'm not entirely sure what Sartre's view of relationships is. I know that when two people are in a longterm relationship, their projects will suddenly conflate and interact with one another. What is marriage if not a project two people take upon themselves. The problems can arise when two people have different views of what that project is. I think the internet has influenced how relationship projects work. How many times has someone uttered the phrase, "Well... are you facebook official?" This is a new way people can see dual projects and perceive how serious two people are with one another.

I don't know what Sartre would think about the freedom the internet gives us. It seems that it can be used for good projects, but as any good thing can do, the internet can be used for evil.