Web becomes a network of support during crisis

MomSeattle · DadSeattle · SPI · MySeattlePix · My account

Local

US/World

Sports

Business

A&E

Life

Comics

Photos

Opinion

Blogs

Buy Ads

NWsource

Web becomes a network of support during crisis

Like never before, we find information, support and solace we need -- online

Monday, September 17, 2001

By WINDA BENEDETTI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Ever since the World Trade Center transformed into the mouth of hell last Tuesday, a good many of my fellow Americans have turned to God for solace. And I have turned to the Internet.


	David Badders/P-I

I've become a supplicant to the almighty computer, worshipping at my T1 connection. I've whispered desperate prayers to my e-mail program, begging it for a sign that my friends in New York were alive. I've sought comfort in the warm embrace of the information superhighway, its everlasting flow of data a blessing from on high.

Yes. I've found a salve for my soul in the computer's glow. And I'm not alone. I know this because I've seen so many of you out there in cyberspace -- seeking answers, seeking retribution, seeking reassurance and forgiveness, seeking something bigger than yourself at a time when everything except this carnage seems inconsequential and small. You, too, have found sanctuary in the Net.

In the past six days, the Web has changed the way we comprehend and cope with incomprehensible tragedy. It has changed the way we mourn as a nation. And it has become a conduit for sanity on a grand group scale.

On the day of the attack, about 4 million to 5 million Americans turned to the Internet to find friends and family when the phone lines failed, according to a study released Saturday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In the 48 hours after the assault, nearly 15 million Americans "attended" virtual meetings, joined chat-room discussions and participated in online communities in a heretofore unmatched fever of cyberanalysis.

I was one of them. On Tuesday -- fueled by fear, adrenaline and, of course, caffeine -- I jacked into the Net like never before. Metamorphosed into a multitasking machine, I connected to a streaming Webcast while simultaneously surfing through a half-dozen news Web sites. I jumped from chat room to bulletin board to chat room surveying a cyberscape awash in debate over everything from the merit of violent retribution to the veracity of a Nostradamus prediction. I paused occasionally to register my opinions while sending a flurry of instant messages back and forth to my friends as we discussed the likelihood of more attacks, the possibility of war and the erosion of our civil liberties.

On that day and ever since, my e-mail in box has filled to the brim with messages from the Web communities and listservs to which I belong. The membership of these groups stretches from Hawaii to Seattle to New York and many places in between, and in a flurry of electronic communications we have sent one another our condolences and our love, we have confided our fears, we have hashed over the political and social ramifications and then hashed over them some more ... all with an intensity and honesty I've never seen before.

And we have yet to stop. It seems we can't get enough.

"It's this community aspect of it that's particularly striking to me -- the sheer volume of it," says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Project. "There is this continuous argument, continuous discussion, continuous almost religious service online."

My friend and fellow e-group member Milkana Stefanova says it's like having access to counseling 24 hours a day. She's right. During these most ghastly days in modern history, the Net has transformed us all into therapists and therapy patients alike. It has allowed us to be there for one another in words if not in physical presence, to counsel and console one another no matter the distances between us.

Shaken, raw and vulnerable, we all want -- no, NEED -- our opinions on the matter to be heard. And with the Net, there is always someone to listen, whether it's in some chat room, on some bulletin board, or at the receiving end of an endlessly forwarded e-mail.

In this way too, the Internet has transformed us all into reporters, opinion columnists and photojournalists. The harrowing tales and gruesome photographs e-mailed to me by my friends and acquaintances have been just as gripping as those I've read in the newspapers and seen on television.

"I was on West Broadway about 8 blocks from the World Trade Center when the 2nd plane crashed, I could see, hear and feel the explosion as it ripped through the building," my friend Tim Bailey wrote to our Web group. "I was only 4 blocks away as I watched bodies falling/jumping from the building. ..."

And the opinions volleyed about in discussion threads and chat rooms have been just as compelling, challenging, appalling and mind-opening as those fed to me by the talking heads and anointed experts.

"In times of crisis, I think most people are hungry for information that's not 'packaged' by the networks," my friend Cathy Guinan pointed out. "In the era before the national media existed, stories spread more intimately, from person to person, in a pub, in front of the general store, in the town hall, etc. I think the Internet has allowed us to return to that form of spreading information."

In this past week, my hunger for information has been insatiable. And such a vast store of knowledge to pore over has been comforting. It's as though if I comb through enough Web pages, sift through the right chat rooms, click on the right e-mail, I might somehow find some semblance of an answer to this ugly mess.

As someone who doesn't believe in an omnipotent god, in these moments the Internet seems to be the closest thing to an all-knowing, all-seeing entity. Here, billions of eyes and ears from around the world have merged into one being -- one that's ready to reveal what it sees, hears, thinks, feels ... if only we ask.

In this way, the interconnectedness of humanity has never been so palpable. And that itself has never been so important.

P-I reporter Winda Benedetti can be reached at 206-448-8223 or windabenedetti@seattlepi.com