What internet? I've never heard of it.

Its official - the internet is 40 today.
James Cory-Wright shares his thoughts on the pros and cons of the World Wide Web.

It was 40 years ago today. Funny how the internet began in the same year as the first man set foot on the moon.  And what a contrast. The internet has changed our lives whereas lunar golf has never caught on. But part of me would prefer it if mankind had pushed on into the deeper reaches of outer space instead of tempting me to bid for a strand of Britney Spears's hair on e-bay.

Whatever. On the plus side the internet is:

Great for settling bets - because it's fantastic for getting any kind of information on anything and everything at the point that you need it from living on the edge - what time the Antiques Road Show is on - to wallowing in nostalgia - Man from UNCLE bubblegum card sets - or the exact definition of the word egregious.

Truly democratic (providing you have access to a computer) - hard to believe in this trammeled world that something so untrammeled, unfettered and chaotic is still allowed to be so DEMOCRATIC; to the wonderful extent that entries in a huge encyclopedia (Wikipedia) may be true…or then again, may be false! This is back to the good old days where you had to sift fact from fiction for yourself; history for example. Did Sir Francis Drake really insist on finishing his game of bowls on Westward Ho before taking on the Spanish Armada. Of course he did!

On the down side the internet is:

Worrying for parents that their children are great at cutting and pasting but not learning anything.

Worrying for kids that parents are getting into social networking.

Fish and chip papering music and films by making them so available they become disposable e. We won't even know what are the names of the tracks on an album if we can download chunks of music at a time like all the recordings ever made by Tonto's Expanding Head Band, rather than the ones that are actually any good.  Are we in danger of having seen and heard everything there is to see and hear simply because we can. Will anything ever be impossible to find as Roxy Music suggested "out of reach burning very holy grail."?

Last but not least, what worries me most is that the internet is so big and so ceaselessly popular that the Earth's atmosphere will fill up with digital stuff and we'll all run out of oxygen. What do you think?

Comments

Add New

Write comment
Name:
Email:
Title:
Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2