I am incredibly tired of hearing from older people how technology is destroying the world. You know the common refrains: video games make kids violent, music corrupts with sex and bass, the internet breeds dull drones. Give me a break.
Technology is a singularly complete mode through people can learn, communicate, listen, watch, be. For the sake of this argument let’s limit this to the internet. The internet strives to be a parallel universe to our everyday world and for the most part it succeeds brilliantly. And most people over age 30 don’t really understand it nor do they try.
The internet is the world in micro. It is music, videos, still images, interactive combinations. Plus these aspects in addition to worlds and objects live within their own worlds with their own physics. We are making the internet the world we wish we could have.
This dynamic, multimedia mix is unlike anything ever seen before. Accordingly there are those who will abuse this new world, pervert it for their own purposes. The most obvious example of this is the world of porn online. The sheer quantity of it and accessibility of it leads a lot of people into a lot of long, lonely nights. That is the easiest trap people seem to fall into. Aside form the sexualized abuses, there are tons of places people can abuse the internet. Abusing people via IM, message boards, blog postings, myspace posts, etc. But the people who abuse the internet, I would argue, are a very small minority when compared to the millions of people who use it without every committing any abuse.
This mixed up world has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you love music, u can browse huge catalogs of it, buy it, listen to it, talk about it. If you love some stupid anime show I guarantee there is a blog, website, forum, or social network niche for you to get your fix. That is the beauty of this multimedia driven universe, not only is it a place to find media, enjoy it, but its also a place where you can interact with people. And not just people sitting across the street, the internet brings together people with no geographical link who may or may not have the same interests, likes, dislikes, and passions.
What the hell is the point of all of this? To many older people the internet is a scary place, where if you download a single file you will destroy your entire computer (that thinking is soooo 1995). But in reality the universe that is the internet and its disparate worlds that inhabit it, are a rich and amazing place. Yeah like any society it has its fringe elements, its devious types that ruin the fun for everyone. But in the end the internet is an amazing mix that everyone can enjoy and should.