We Are All Married to the Net!

At this time, I feel almost redundant repeating how much I think the Internet is the Last Great Human Invention, so I would not exhaust or belabor this observation. I agree with the observations in the “Internet and Social Life” piece.

So on PCs and Macs first. Like most people, I was enslaved to the PC for so long until I was exposed to the Mac from Apple about a year ago, since then me and my Mac sleep together and are inseparable. Ok, may be that is too much, but I think one of the great things Apple has been able to accomplish over the years is to make its product aesthetically attractive to the eyes and very user-friendly. But what Apple does even better is to make products that converge together such as the iPod , iPhone and what ever iGadget that Steve Jobs and his engineers are cooking up. Also, does anyone notice that you don’t get a lot of viruses or piracy attacks when you use a Mac?

The Pew Research folks conduct such wonderful surveys that capture a wide range of what people are thinking and what they are doing. What the survey results shows to me is that the Internet is an indispensable tool. It does not control our lives, but we can use it to enhance and refine our lives and the activities we value. ( I think McKenna and Bargh made a similar point). People flock to the Internet for different reasons, Star War fans look for information on Star Wars collectibles and conventions, bikers look for information on biking, etc. It is then not surprising that political information seekers go beyond just information that they believe in or are already comfortable with and seek more and even varying views on all sorts of issues.

Like any other aspect of our lives, the Internet has come to change and define politics. It has brought a transparency that was not there. We all remember the Macaca moment of Sen. George Allen in 2006 thanks to YouTube. But beyond Youtube, it allows more people to be involved in politics, it allows not traditional constituents to donate little sums of money to their candidates (Howard Dean, Ron Paul, Barack Obama, etc). But the Internet is also a strong vehicle for bringing democracy to closed societies. Because of its open nature, amid attempts by governments such as China and North Korea, the internet remains still the most potent way to get information into an doubt of a closed society.

Personally, I would say that the Internet has had a positive effect on my life. I cannot imagine life without my laptop and being able to get online. Interestingly enough, outside of work, it is websites like the New York Times, Washington Post, the Economist, Wikipedia, CNN etc, that occupy my “online” time. If you like to devour information, you can get lost in the virtual world wide web. I am not going to admit to being addicted to the Internet, but sometimes (ok most times) when I am in front of the computer, I prefer people just IM me instead of calling me over the phone or trying to talk to me in person, IM is not as distracting!