The Cyber-culture

Cyber - culture is the set of social expectations, etiquette, history and language used by the collection of people active on the World Wide Web.Just as the non-cyber world is separated into cliques and countries, the cyber world is separated into taxonomies and web spheres.The countries of the world are partially represented in cyberspace by the country domains, but more than ever people are less connected by language and locale and more by common interest.  The importance of this cyber-culture to educational technology is that it is the ground upon which we should build our e-learning frameworks as it is rapidly becoming common ground for every connected person in the world.

Over the years cyber culture has been changing rapidly. This is partially because the browsers and website are capable of so much more rich media than in the past, and partially because the internet is becoming ubiquitous in mainstream offline society.    Everyone in the real world has to have a connection to the cyber-world we have constructed.  Businesses can mark their success by the strength of their online brand.  Some trends in use of the internet show that internet users have been decreasing in age.For those younger in age, there are social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, all of which serve to maintain connections with numerous friends. Users on these sites may post what they are doing – which all their friends are able to view – and comment on what other people are doing. It may be the world’s largest gossip chain, and not a word has to be spoken for it to happen. Friends and siblings may not speak for over a year, yet they will still be able to tell what the other party had for breakfast that morning. Rumors can be started on networking sites, and they can sometimes ruin “real-life” friendships, if they are vicious enough. It seem silly to think that something typed on a computer screen can have such a far influence, but such is the power of the internet.