I just found this half-baked post from 2008 which I'd left unpublished. Seemed fitting that I leave it up here. Oh, remember AOL? Dear god.
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Today, something reminded me of this:
Today, I find myself using the internet more, both for work and personal reasons. What started as using online databases for research and a myspace profile to keep up with friends without the extra expense of using the phone, has led to an entirely different online experience. I now get more news from the internet than from the tv. I have dealt with spammers and trolls galore. I have witnessed cyber harassment and identity theft. I have had run-ins with heavy handed forum moderators, and gone up against cyber-asskissing brigades. I have made new friends, new enemies, and been thrown into both constructive, discursive debate, and mindless arguments. I have had my IP tracked and receive approximately 27 emails per day from a sender who believes they can cure my erectile dysfunction. I have discovered new music, new technology, new debates and the joy of attempted CSS coding.
Often teetering on the brink of internet addiction, I do find that real life can often be a little slow, sluggish, and inefficient. Why wait until tomorrow morning to read the news when you can get it online when it happens with the right rss feeds? With a well-arranged enough google homepage, you can have your email, your subscriptions and, say, a digg widget on one page so you get a constant stream of updates on anything you like from all over the world. If you're not careful, you can end up being sucked into a vortex of disposable information and fleeting communication, with nothing to stand on in the real world, always chasing after the newest exciting story, somethingorother 2.0, or the latest, biggest, fastest way to get your gmail to integrate with your fifteenth social networking site.
As I have reason to spend a lot of time at this computer, I owe it to myself to look at exactly what I'm doing online, and make sure there's a voice of reason somewhere. I think the internet is one of the most powerful tools we have, and clearly this can be utilised for good or not so good purposes. I'll debate with myself over the issues I've come across, and encourage you to do the same.
NEWS
When it comes to news, the reason I get much of my news on the internet is because I can investigate it. I can look up nearly any subject, and have access to opinions from every point on the spectrum. I no longer need to take what I'm given. It's not like sitting in front of the tv and having opinions poured into my head. I can actively engage in the process of forming opinions, and weigh up all sides of an argument before figuring out where I stand on it. On the flip side, this can be a longer process than simply turning to a trusted news source, as you sift through pages and pages of blogs and commentaries to work out which sites are giving you facts, which are giving you lies, and which are written by someone up on their soapbox. Anything can be written by anyone and spread all over the network. Much as there is more information, it becomes harder to tell what and who to trust.
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... and that's where it stopped. I'm just going to leave it there. Happy 2014, internets. It's been a long time.
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