The Glorious Internet

At times we do take the Internet and search for granted. For example, today I looked for a new baked chicken recipe and found about 10 different ones I wanted to try in less than 3 minutes. Before the Internet I would have to flip through dozens of pages in a cook book or call my mom for a recipe. I think most of us grad students take the Internet for granted during our research projects and papers. Remember back in the day when you had to go to the actual library, search in encyclopedias and even use the microfiche machine? After watching a segment on "Search" of John Heilemann's the The True Story of the Internet, I remembered how fortunate we are to have the Internet at our fingertips and how fortunate our society is to have the brilliant Stanford grads like the inventors of Yahoo, Excite and Google who have paved the way for this massive information machine.

Not only has the Internet allowed us to have more access to information more conveniently, it has created a more democratic media system, enabling the average Joe to create and deliver content as discussed in Heilemann's segment on "People Power". The corporate media giants are no longer the only ones who can dictate what you get to see or hear. Although I think this is a very positive thing, I also think it brings new risks we need to be aware and careful of. With the Internet and social networking tools, any person can publish content that in turn could potentially be harmful or encourage potentially detrimental behavior. I think it is up to our field of study to educate society on how to interpret and interact with this new age of media and use it for the greater good of society.