Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Two Faces of the Internet

The Internet is a tool that has limitless potential. It can help us find the most obscure information that would be hard to obtain through any other medium. Not only is the Internet like a great pool of knowledge that billions of people can access, it is also a great network of collaboration and sociality. I can find people anywhere in the world that share my beliefs, and form social networks with them. In fact, I even attribute the Internet to helping me find my wife and getting to know her better. A friend had introduced me to her, and her being from Chile meant that the Internet was the best way we had to communicate. It was sure a lot cheaper than calling long distance. We even had regular video conferences, all for basically free. This had helped us to learn more about each other, but we could not rely on the Internet for everything. I ended up travelling down to Chile twice so that we could get to know each other in person better. Because of my experience I see the Internet as giving us more opportunities to do more than we had ever thought possible, but yet I understand that the Internet does not give us the solution to all our problems, or replace other social aspects that are important in our lives. And we always need to be aware of the equally bad potential that the Internet has.

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