Enhanced Group Membership

Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.

Sep 23, 2024

Before the 2000s most people considered themselves either a member of an urban community, a suburban community, or a rural community, typically wherever one physically resided. Of course there were wider ranging politicians, military personnel, merchant marines, explorers, hunters, and hikers in the world's wilder areas who had a more global focus, but most of us still identified with wherever we lived. When did this change? In the 1980s I began to self-identify as a Global Citizen, but each time I said it I had to explain that the term indicated that I am focused on the world at large and that I care about all life here.

Now I identify as a netizen as I seamlessly move back and forth from irl (in real life) to whichever of my devices, mobile phone, tablets, PC, TV-YouTube... that I use to play and study on the internet. I might go so far as to see myself as a cybernaut whenever I search a little farther, dig a little deeper into the web. I am a global citizen in many senses.

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✨ (AI Overview) "A netizen is a person who is active on the internet, especially in online communities, and often participates in political discussions. The term is a combination of the words "internet" and "citizen".

Vocabulary.com "A cybernaut is a person who uses the Internet to explore and communicate. It's becoming more and more rare to meet anyone who isn't a cybernaut these days." Synonym for netizen. (This definition seems imprecise and incomplete, I will give the word a decade or so to sort itself out.)

Enhanced Group Membership