The
Internet has been a positive technology for society. It has brought people
together from all over the world to share information, consume knowledge, and
to produce a wide variety of content such as web sites, blogs, videos, and
photographs. The Internet is the one place where many different cultures,
ethnicities, religions, and groups of people can communicate and interact with
each other on a global scale. It is hard to think of one aspect of culture or
of one cultural group that is not on the Internet. Thus, Kevin Kelly states in his
article, “We Are the Web,” “that in part because of the ease of creating and
dissemination, online culture is the
culture” (Kelly). The Internet has developed and changed from a passive technology
to a much more active one where anyone can truly express themself. The Internet
allows people to follow their passions and goals, but also, it allows people to
truly be who they are online. As a society, it has become natural for people to
produce and consume as much information and knowledge as possible. “The
producers are the audience, the act of making is the act of watching, and every
link is both a point of departure and a destination” (Kelly). Hence, the
participatory and sharing aspects of the Internet have made this revolutionary
technology a truly democratic, open medium around the world, but at the same
time, it exposes people, it connects the private and the public life, and it
makes ordinary citizens vulnerable to attention like celebrities.
Most
ordinary citizens of the world are not producing online content primarily
because of money, fame, or even celebrity status, but they are using their
personal time and utilizing their gifts and passions to upload music, write
blog entries, make videos, and create other online content that adds
significant cultural value to the web. Internet technology spurs a gift economy
where people effortlessly create free online content for others to consume
around the world, and hence, these people are building a strong democracy within
the Internet. Kevin Kelly states that “this gift economy fuels an abundance of
choices. It spurs the grateful to reciprocate. It permits easy modification and
reuse, and thus promotes consumers into producers” (Kelly). Kelly’s statement
implies that people are actively creative in their pursuits online.
Furthermore, people are not being controlled by Internet technology, but
rather, they control the web with the wide variety of information they consume,
and more important, with the knowledge they constantly share with others. This
control can be advantageous because “the electricity of participation nudges
ordinary folks to invest huge hunks of energy and time into making free
encyclopedias, creating public tutorials for changing a flat tire, or
cataloging the votes in the Senate” (Kelly). Consequently, as long as there is
a participatory audience for this technology, the power and future of the Internet
will be in the hands of ordinary citizens from different countries who bring
different cultures, ideas, beliefs, opinions, values, knowledge, and
opportunities to the World Wide Web.
So,
there is an enormous benefit to producing and sharing content online now and in
the future, but web users’ desires to share information openly comes at the
cost of merging private space into a public environment like the Internet. By
using the Internet, people do have control of and open access to what they
upload, create, and post on the web, but at the same time, ordinary people
become public figures who put their offline identities at risk of exposure.
According to Jeffrey Rosen in his article, “The Web Means the End of
Forgetting,” for many, “the Web was supposed to be the second flowering of the
open frontier, and the ability to segment our identities with an endless supply
of pseudonyms, avatars and categories of friendship was supposed to let people
present different sides of their personalities in different contexts” (Rosen).
In reality, with the content people create and produce online, the Internet has
created permanent, inescapable identities and public images of people.
Every
YouTube video uploaded, comment posted on a social networking site, and every
photograph is, in a way, publicly and permanently recorded online. “The fact
that the Internet never seems to forget is threatening, at an almost
existential level, our ability to control our identities; to preserve the
option of reinventing ourselves and starting anew; to overcome our checkered
pasts” (Rosen). As a result, the technology of the Internet is constantly
evolving and transforming, but it is an all-knowing and non-forgetting
technology of the past and of the present that makes people vulnerable and feel
like the Internet is out of their control. In the end, no individual person is
perfect, and everybody makes mistakes that the Internet highlights publicly
with increasing production and wide open access. With the billions of people
who have access to the Internet, nobody has a perfect or flawless online
reputation. Thus, this technology has presented challenges in defining private
and public space. Information that was once private is now out in the public
sphere for scrutiny.
The
Internet has become a dominant technology in society. Today, it would be
difficult for many people to try to manage their daily lives without the
Internet. The Internet serves so many functions and so many of people’s daily
needs. With this technology, people can communicate, interact, write, make and
share videos, and do whatever it takes to reach their goals and to use their
passions. The web is a community of people producing and consuming
simultaneously. This technology has become so embedded in society that it
changes the way people think, live, and interact with other people online and
offline. This technology is so important to people’s cultural beliefs and
values that even some of the Amish are unable to resist the power of actively
using the Internet. With the significance the Internet has already achieved in
society, it is easy to imagine a future like Kevin Kelly did when he said that
“everyone alive will (on average) write a song, author a book, make a video,
craft a weblog, and code a program” (Kelly). Thus, it appears that the Internet
will have endless opportunities and numerous possibilities, but there are
challenges and issues of privacy in the way that make it more difficult to
extrapolate and predict the future potential of Internet technology.
Kelly,
Kevin. “We Are the Web.” Wired.com. Wired
Magazine, August 2005. Web. 28 March 2012.
Rosen,
Jeffrey. “The Web Means the End of Forgetting.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 21 July 2010. Web. 28 March
2012.
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