This blog is actually an opinion article I wrote for my final. I was happy with it (you may make your own opinion) but I felt like posting it.
Being a student in the year 2007 is exciting with Web 2.0. There is so much information at my fingertips. I really wanted to watch the YouTube Democratic debate, however without a television and not being in the US, this would have been close to impossible. But with the invention of video-sharing websites, I was able to go onto YouTube the next day and watch the entire debate – with no commercials!
With Wikipedia, Google, and Factiva, the library seems like a foreign concept. Many of my peers would be hard-pressed to visit one of those anytime soon. Are we getting lazy? Do we have too much information being thrown at us from unlimited sources all on one screen?
If the 90s were the age of excess, then the 00s must be the age of the Internet. Web 2.0 has given us knowledge and connected users from around the globe. It’s evolutionised the way we conduct our day-to-day dealings and with each other. From instant messaging, social networking sites, blogs, Flickr, and YouTube, I can stay connected with my friends and family thousands of miles away – without having to worry about a large phone bill.
Does this make us lazy? It certainly doesn’t make me lazy. With the more information I stumble across, the more I want. It’s like a drug. Once I read a blog that recommends a book, a movie, or a place to go, I want to do it all. I want to form my own opinion. Sure, there are people who are content with sitting in front of the computer screen, but they’re no different to those who were content sitting in front of the television.
Andrew Keen has recently put out a book, The Cult of the Amateur. In it, he discusses the end of our society and the end of old media. Blogs are “collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture”. He should only be so happy, as I learnt about his book on a blog. And I probably will go out and buy his book, just to see his point of view, and then I’ll blog about it.
Everyone has the ability to have his or her voices and songs heard, words read, and videos seen. Does this make us lazy? People need to look at the big picture. The dot-com bubble burst around the same time terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in the ‘impenetrable’ US. Shit hit the fan. Things haven’t been the same since. Maybe we want to connect with each other, since no one seems to be gelling in the real world?
Perhaps Second Life isn’t such a bad idea, if I can avoid a war I never believed in. A blog I can rant and rave in because no one else is listening. Upload videos of people that matter to me. This doesn’t make me lazy. I’m just connecting, in a world where no one else is.
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