During the unit 3 readings it struck me just how much the internet has changed over the years and what implication that has for people navigating today’s digital landscape. When I was about seventeen, I remember going over to my friend’s house to see this new concept on his computer called ‘the internet’. It was text based and while it really opened my mind to what was technologically possible, it was predominantly in the realm of written information and therefore truly lacked any type of user interaction. All these years later the internet has become unrecognizable. It is now so much more than finding information; it is communities, interactions and connections.
The internet has grown and changed in many magnificent ways and also created unintended consequences for humanity. We use the internet for virtually every aspect of our lives and there is growing evidence that this fact increasingly comes at a human cost. A paper called the ‘Psychological Effects of the Internet Use’ mentions on this topic that “the ever-increasing use of computers has a negative impact on the health of users affecting various systems and causing physical and mental problems.” (Diomidous M, 2016) I suspect that the internet in the coming years will be considered in a different light and navigated with far more savvy, careful consideration and mindfulness then may have been needed in years past. I think this idea is reflected in the Participatory Open video (Stewart, Phipps, & Cormier, 2019) where it was evident (even a few years ago) that people have been demonstrating a growing mindset towards online caution and communal awareness.
Sources
Diomidous M, Chardalias K, Magita A, Koutonias P, Panagiotopoulou P, Mantas J. Social and Psychological Effects of the Internet Use. Acta Inform Med. 2016 Feb;24(1):66-8. doi: 10.5455/aim.2016.24.66-68. Epub 2016 Feb 2. PMID: 27041814; PMCID: PMC4789623. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4789623/
Stewart, B., Phipps, L., & Cormier, D. (2019). The Participatory open: Can we build a Pro-Social, Pro-Societal web? [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D4tg1FnE_s
Interesting article – thanks Vince!
I’ve been considering many of the same ideas over the past couple of weeks. I wonder if “we” as a society will be able to organically adopt a more careful and mindful approach to the internet–especially social media–or if will eventually require a more regulatory approach. Or, does information technology simply evolve too quickly for traditional legal and social boundaries to adapt? At this point, I have far more questions than answers.