What is your relationship to the internet?

Web 2.0 :: SOCS300


In the early years of the internet boom, around the turn of the century, I admit some doubt and frustrations.

There was a crash of internet company stocks, aka the dot-com companies, at the time the event was dubbed "dot-bomb". It was a lot to take in.. there were huge financial losses, in addition to a suddenly overwhelming amount of information at our fingertips, and the birth of spam e-mails.  It seriously felt out of control for a while.  The icing on the cake came with the issue of the "Y2K bug".. software programmers did not look beyond the 20th century when configuring dates, according to public reports.

The world overcame it. Programmers and tech support staff evolved into a strong industry, upon which businesses relied on heavily.. and I believe still do to this day.

But how much should we rely on the information found on the internet? How accurate is it? What is the source? Who is the originator? How do we authenticate content? This issue still causes me concern, and keeps me skeptical. No doubt there are things which we can generally rely on, such as a satellite image of a map (even though it's not a "live" image). But when it comes to research and resources, such a wikipedia, it is merely a starting point for me :: I dig deeper :: I tend to begin with the internet, because it is fast, quickly accessed and prompts thinking and direction. I interview people, from diverse backgrounds, ranks and fields. I sift through books, magazines, newspapers, national statistics and so on. Then there are always industry associations, focus groups and social/interest groups.

Today I use it daily to communicate. I keep in touch with friends overseas via video calls. Stay in the loop with email notifications. Organize plans with a group.. and more. Music, movies, videos are readily available, 24/7. And an unexpected but powerful benefit to the internet is its elaborate capacity for visual language + communication. Research of images, identifying faces, YouTube hits, finding certain charts and diagrams etc. I absolutely enjoy this aspect of the internet, and look forward to experimenting more with web 2.0 tools.

*to approach it with an open mind is key*