I was interested to read in the Sunday Times today an article by Bryan Appleyard about the perils of the internet, and its supposed revolution of our world. It was his emotional stance which surprised me as he thought his slightly critical view of the internet would encourage people to “sneer.”
It reminded me that one of my elderly relations told me very forcefully that the internet was extremely dangerous. How did she know?
The answer: “Oh I know, everybody knows.”
Had she ever been on the internet?
Of course not.
I think this was after the Gary Glitter revelations so I suppose was not surprising in someone in her eighties. She was fundamentally nostalgic for the golden years of her youth. Far easier to blame the messenger.
Bryan Appleyard’s main premise is that the internet has encouraged a culture of individualism and declared himself a Luddite. He seems to have positioned himself against an army of readers who think that the internet is irreproachable, and are almost adherents of a web cult.
Whether this was simply a journalistic device is not forthcoming.
The original Luddites smashed the new industrial machines because they were “bad” for agricultural workers…although they were “good” for the British economy as a whole.
By the same token the Gutenberg press was “bad” for the monks who laboured slowly over beautiful manuscripts, (although I doubt that they smashed anything), but “good” in spreading the printed word.
The internet is simply the means of communication. To think of it as good or bad is not the point. Social media and Web 2.0 is where we are now, in five years time I am sure things will have changed out of all recognition.
The internet allows people to express themselves and be publishers to a wider audience in a way that has not happened before.
The issue is whether the messages are of value or not, rather than whether the internet is “good” or “bad” as it is simply a means of communication.
The opportunity, surely, is to be the change you want to see on the internet.
