Mark Slouka

Mark Slouka has taught writing at Columbia, Harvard, Penn State, and the University of Virginia. In his book War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the High— Tech Assault on Reality, he challenges the assumption that technological advances are always good. In the book's introduction, excerpted below, Slouka voices his concern that the "virtual reality" of computers and the Internet could threaten the quality of people's genuine lives. For example, he believes that computer games that allow people to commit virtual violence may desensitize them to the real thing. On a broader scale, Slouka opposes technology enthusiasts who envision a future in which people spend more of their time in online virtual communities than they do in the real world. Caution is warranted, he concludes, because the constantly evolving technologies of the Internet and virtual reality...