On the Internet

Being unemployed (or technically self-employed, but at the current rate that my freelancing is going I may as well not be) and after three years as a student, I have had more than a lot of exposure to three distinct things: My bed, daytime television and the Internet. Or, more specifically: sleep, Top Gear and Facebook. Because there is only ever Top Gear on television during the day, to be replaced by Friends at about 6 o'clock. As such, it has often been that I turn away from the episode of Top Gear I have seen four hundred times before and check up on what is going on on the Internet, i.e. Facebook. And I have recently come to the conclusion that the Internet is a lie.

Apparently, I'm not alone. At a recent conference in Oxford to discuss the Internet, a Mr Zuckerman told what I assume was a packed audience that the Internet has not lived up to potential, that it has failed to bring the world closer together. Rather than being used as a tool to cross cultural and political barriers and create a highly cosmopolitan virtual world, what has happened instead is that more and more emphasis has been placed, thanks to the Internet, on restricting an outward view towards the world in favour of focusing more on local issues and cultures. What has cropped up, it seems, is a virtual apartheid, consisting of little pockets of web space taken up by a certain cultural demographic with very little interaction between them. From my own personal experience, I wonder what has taken him so long to realise this.

I don't know if it's just because of my limited outlook or creativity but my use of the Internet tends to consist entirely of reading comics, checking up on updates from BBC news and sport, playing a game every now and then and, most of all, checking Facebook for what everyone else is doing. Once in a while I may check Youtube for something interesting or for music clips but, otherwise, that's about it. Now as I said, this may just be me. I would personally believe that I am fairly curious but must admit to a lack of effort in terms of following most things up. When I do, it tends to be the Internet which does provide the answers to my queries. But I can't help but wonder how much this curiosity has been quashed by social networking sites. My curiosity is now more focused on how the people I used to know are doing or, since I am now on Twitter, what news there is on the work in progress for the new Doctor Who script. And social networking just gives us things. Links to videos, news sites or pictures of things happening. So the mentality has shifted away from "I should really find out what is going on out there." to "Why bother looking? It comes to me anyway." Obviously, this is not true of everyone, or there would be no links on Facebook but either way, this does definitely show a trend of voluntary isolation. People are content to see what is put in front of them, rather than find out what is out there.

There is a definite Internet society. Those who keep on the very pulse of the world and spread the word to all of us. The flash mob generators, the "meme" builders, who can take a strange, isolated piece of media and turn it into a phenomenon. But what benefit does this provide to the Internet as a tool for knowledge? How much do we gain from knowing that "All your base are belong to us"? Later in his speech Zuckerman pays tribute to those who, in China, take the effort to translate Western newspaper articles into Chinese so that the country may have some exposure to the world outside, presumably at great personal risk and then bemoans the lack of any equivelent within the Western world, bringing us the news from China. Instead, our concentrations lie on the exploits of celebrities, or capturing some slice of "legend" with a ridiculous internet meme. It is the lack of integration that has been the great failure of the Internet.

So often it is that I stare at my computer screen with an air of desperation. That I get so little from something that really promises so much. But is this the problem? We are given a way to learn anything we want. To pick from the eternal buffet of knowledge and delve into the wide, diverse world. How are you supposed to start? Where do you begin when faced with everything? To start with the familiar is the obvious first step, not because we do not wish to venture into the unknown world but because, quite frankly, it's hard to find things if you don't know what they are. Give the human brain infinity and it will explode. So we start at the familiar and hope something new crosses our path. And this is the internet now; waiting on social network sites hoping for some insight from those with different viewpoints. A world sitting around a virtual table hoping somebody else comes up with something good to say, whilst the kids run around everybody's ankles shouting incomprehensible nonsense about ceiling cats.

Zuckerman hopes for a reworking of the Internet with translation protocols and virtual guides that can direct people through things that are unknown. This sounds like he's proposing a TV travel documentary through the internet. Maybe Michael Palin is free. As for me, I think I'm just going to go outside more.