Is the Internet Giving Rise to New Forms of Altruism? https://mprcenter.org/review/internetdigitalaltruism/ Dana Klisanin, Ph.D.
Everyday digital altruism is the most common form of digital altruism. It is expedient and requires little more than the willingness to help another, e.g., clicking-to-donate or adding content to informational websites. Everyday digital altruism can also be said to include the act of contributing content with the goal of improving open-source software, and/or sharing valuable knowledge and information with others via educational and informational websites such as Wikipedia
Creative digital altruism involves the creation and maintenance of websites and social platforms that support digital altruism. It requires creativity, cooperation, and heightened moral engagement (e.g., creating and maintaining Care2.com). Although there is little chance that any one of these organizations will single-handedly end all of the inequalities and injustices they set out to address, there is no doubt that the Founders have 1) engaged in creative work towards fulfilling moral obligations, 2) would gladly accept their obsolescence (i.e., as altruists) if such a need should arise,3 3) have cooperated to achieve their aims
Co-creative digital altruism involves the creation of digital initiatives that support digital altruism that
1) are initiated at the systems level, i.e., corporate level, or similar
2) involve transdisciplinary creativity;
3) entail sustained moral engagement,
4) require cooperation that is transnational, transcorporate, transNGO, and transpersonal__meta-cooperation (e.g., creating and maintaining the World Community Grid)..
It is that the questions we ask, and the tools we use, determine the reality we experience −our worldview. While the dominant discourse continues to privilege investigations of the detrimental impacts of digital technology, this exploratory investigation privileged the positive aspects, specifically asking if the Internet is giving rise to new forms of altruism. In order to solve global problems humanity requires “a new turn in world-consciousness, new ways of monitoring technological innovations, new social inventions, and new forms of creative altruism”.