don’t we all love the internet? it brings us close together. mail, skype (and the like), cams for one-on-ones+. your local newspapers, streaming home radio and all other couleur locale wherever you are, at home, on holiday or as emigrant. the internet has been, is and will be the change in our lives. the industrial revolution revisited.

so the internet is cool. it helps us gain knowledge. students have unlimited resources for papers. it gets people connected socially and it empowers them. the internet frees people -up to a certain limit, i know- from dictators.

picture by the opte project

but what if the internet is like the new television. (i have not said this before, but i think tv makes people stupid. it’s passive, one way and it degrades the user to a couch potato.) there are differences of course. internet is hardly to be called passive or one way communication.

it is snapshot satisfaction though. it’s the burger king of information. certainly if you limit yourself to the sources that are in control. google is great, but is it all there is? cnn or bbc are fast and -mostly- reliable sources. but features don’t go on for more than one web page typically. it’s not the medium -by technical defaults- for extensive reading.

there are sources that go deeper. wikipedia. online libraries. sites that are dedicated to one single theme. science unlocked by publishing labs.

so this is my dilemma: what good is the internet? i am ambivalent. i see all the opps of the medium. on the other hand i feel the thing provokes a mass monoculture that levels out opinions and discourages individual thinking. why that is and where this comes from (it is an america dominated platform, remind you), is something i’d like to post future pieces on.

your views are very welcome. i feel mouldable on this – and it could make me more optimistic too. (kp)