Liquid Love

Adbusters describes: as fast as the influence of virtual communities has grown, a body of thought condemning its corrosive effects on society has sprung up as well, from both mainstream and academic sources. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, for instance, sees nothing to be amused about in a tendency towards what he calls “liquid life,” arguing that technologically mediated interaction leads to a fluid, detached relationship to real-life others. “Virtual relationships . . . set the pattern that drives out all other relationships,” Bauman laments, with reference to internet dating, “That does not make the people who surrender to them happy. You gain something, you lose something else.” More here.