Because of the pure animosity of the internet, one is not held responsible for his actions. Any joe shmoe can log in, post whatever his mind can delude him into thinking, and write it off as truth. We see this often in our school systems; so called "Wikipedia-warriors" coming in with no actual knowledge of what the subject is about. Us as Americans are most likely more apt to do this, as we rely more heavily on computers and cyberspace then any other culture in history. We have all the libraries and museums we could possibly ask for, but instead we choose the path of the keyboard, logging on to fulfill our information needs, rather than visit these buildings.
You have to remember though, I'm not saying that everything on the internet is a fallacy. Some of the best things you could ever learn is waiting for you, lurking behind some website URL, or in a random trivia page. In order to find these "Oasises" of learning though, you have to do a bit of research. When you find a piece of info you think is true, make sure to cross check it against other, reliable websites. Obviously, you should probably trust an official Webster's Dictionary site over some random message board when pertaining to the usage of words.
And I'm not even going to start on the topic of viruses and the like.
But I've dragged on long enough about this, you guys would probably be happy (Insert picture here to distract you...look at the picture.....
(Lol I love this picture)
But the morale of this blog is simply this. Watch what you find on the internet, not all of it is out to help you.
Longfellow out.
Great first post Longfellow! I obviously agree that you need to stick to reliable internet sources when it really matters, since I make all of you do this for papers in my class.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder, however: why is the internet any different from your average library? Just as there are reliable and unreliable web pages, so too are there reliable and unreliable texts. You can't trust a pamphlet published by a pro- (or anti-) abortion organization to give you accurate facts about abortions - they're biased. And books can sit around on the shelf for a long time: the science book from 1970 might be just as wrong about black holes as your average "wikipedia warrior." Ultimately, you have to use more than one source to make sure everyone agrees, I think.
nice, I like that you clearly state the contrast between the good and "evil" sides of the internet. I think we should consider both and be aware of both every time we double click the e on our desktops. or globe/fox thing if you're a mozilla firefox user (gay)
ReplyDeleteBut how does one tell the difference between the evil and the good? It's not like there's a pentagram hovering over every site that is "evil," or a dove circling the hyper-links to the "good" sites.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, it's all just words and pictures and videos on the screen. Isn't it what we do with it that is good/evil?
And don't use "gay" again or I'll have to take away points. Let's keep this clean, estudientes.
I like this post, it has a really good contrast.
ReplyDeleteI like this post. :D
ReplyDeleteHey! I use Firefox... This post is great but the first thing that I thought of was exactly like Mr. Wyke's post. What keeps the information in textbooks from being changed a little bit to make it more interesting or easier?
ReplyDeleteThis is a good post, and I definately agree that there are both good and bad things about the internet.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great argument and it just shows you cant trust everything that is out there because on the web you can post anything you want whether it's fact or fiction.
ReplyDeleteI must agree with your arguement. With an excess of unreliable sources on the internet, it becomes very difficult to find sufficient information.
ReplyDeleteI agree that using the Internet has pros and cons.
ReplyDeleteI do believe the internet has some helpful sites, but the worthless sites, in my opinion, far outnumber them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you say about the internet having good and bad sites.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, I can't count how many misconceptions ive had and heard of that come from unreliable internet sources.
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with you Longfellow its a very good way to describe the internets.
ReplyDeleteyou have perfectly described the interwebs to my desire.
ReplyDeleteMmmmk. Two things. 1st: Internet=Definitely AMAZING!!! 2nd: Internet=Definitely ANNOYING!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post, the internet can be very good and very annoying.
ReplyDelete