A few days ago my cousin Carol asked me if I thought the internet had been a positive or a negative development. We discussed this about 20 minutes, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
First of all, for me to discuss the internet is like a Catholic priest giving advice on marriage. He may give good advice, but he certainly won’t have personal experience with the topic. There are vast areas with which I have no experience. Never been on Facebook, never tweeted, never was in a chat room (do they still have those?), never sent a text, never heard a podcast, never Skyped (do they still Skype?).
Nonetheless, like so many topics, I may not know much, but that doesn’t stop me from having opinions. So I would break it down. I think those developments under the broad heading of “social media” have been a bad thing on balance.
Certainly our President’s use of Twitter is harming our country. I believe Facebook has actually reduced community ties, although it has allowed all kinds of evil people to find each other who never would have been able to 20 years ago. People form attachments, but in many cases the attachments are thin. They may be your “friends,” but you can’t borrow money from them.
On the other hand, today I looked up the homepage of a poetry review to determine if it might publish some of my poems. I looked up Rex Parker’s solution to the New York Times crossword puzzle. Almost every day I look something up on Wikipedia. I’m reaching an audience with this post. All of those are things I would not wish to lose.
So, I’m straddling the fence, always a painful place to be.
Personally I think the internet is a good thing. However there is bad also, just like TV, radio and newspapers. I know you read a lot of papers and for the most part they are good. But some of the columnists and letters to the editor are evil at times. If people were more civil, the world would be a better place. We should all live by "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Wishful thinking on my part but that will never happen.
ReplyDeleteI think one problem is that platforms like Twitter actually encourage incivility. People tweet things they would never say face to face. I have no solutions, unfortunately.
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