Samuelson a 40 year business reporter suggests is this piece that we would be better off without the Internet. He believes that Facebook, Twitter and texting have killed all our social skills.. Couple with the revelation the dear ole uncle is spying on us just recently is the end of democracy .He also believes that has ruined journalism and destroyed newpapers including free weekly newspapers.
There is no doubt that the net has brought about vast changes in our daily lives , some good , some bad , and the end results for some have yet to come to there end.
I don't like all the texting and twittering (neither of which I use) but understand why they are popular. Being an Old Coger I am slow to adapt to these new toys. Unlike the net which I was on very early and probably addicted to for years.
It has changes journalism and the way news is delivered in ways that bother me. News shows that rely on lots of twitter to do what they call news can make me flip the dials quickly.
Given all the annoying features of the net mentioned above for me there are too many features that I could not live without today.
First consider the ability to check our illnesses , drug side affects by itself is worth the loss of privacy. You hear of something new to you mentioned on the air or in a story that you know nothing about , you simply jump on the net and study away. ( an example for me was when derivatives were being touted as to complicated to understand even for the guys who wrote them ) was a challenge I had to take up. Took me maybe six months of work but finally I figured them to be noting more than a bet backed by nothing.
When folks get old or banged up instead of fighting the crowds in stores you visit dear ole Amazon and buy just about anything you need, some places you can even by you food on line. Or if you just hate to shop like my wife , Amazon is a god send. It makes looking for a specific item easy as pie, instead of having to march thru 10 stores to find what you want.
One of the most important gains for me was devices like Amazon's Kindle which until I got one I didn't read hardly at all because of an eye injury which limited me to 20 minutes of read time. Since my Kindle I have read well over 100 books on lots of subjects , making the nights with little of value on the tv livable.
As for destroying journalism , one can say it certainly changed how we get our information.. Sadness for all those who lost their newspaper jobs is tought to take as lots of good people have had their careers disappear with little chance of replacing them. Some have survived on sites that wern't around just a short while ago. It takes more work today to dig out places and stories that you need to see but it can be done. When you consider that all newspapers and tv news are built out of a few sources and are the same.
The bottom line is are you willing to sacrifice your privacy for the information available to you on the net. If you look at the new data collection center being built in Utah you can figure they are recording every word, site, and info you put out on the net. They know everything about you or your intent.
They say they have stopped many terrorist acts using this technology and maybe they have. But anyone seriously planning something is not going to use the net. Osama is the latest example of someone planning something that didn't use the net. So you can look at ancient methods of transmitting data, couriers, carrier pigeons , blackbirds (as in Game of Thrones), signal flags or smoke signals. A bad guy would be a fool to use the net for a planning device.
Given all the negatives , I'll keep my net running and will be a lot more careful in what I write on things like this blog. In the past I have not been that careful and given the standards today would be in trouble using that language today.
Well said!
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