I grew up in a society were I’ve lived to see the computer become as common a household item as a telephone. When you’ve had access to the web from such a young age, It is a strange, and often unnerving concept to think that once upon a time, we lived in a world without the wonders of the world wide web.
Back in the day, information was channelled primarily through newspapers, televisions and books. The library was of cause our internet, before it evolved into he digital realms. The problem is, it’s neon impossible to keep books up to date on a daily basis, so up to date information was left in the hands of television producers and news corporations.
The masses, even now, have grown quite passive of this fact, and often don’t stop to think about who controls the flow of information, and the power this responsibility encompasses. The media (controllers of information) have a huge impact on how the population of a country thinks and holds it’s values. The way to control a nation perceptions, is to control the information in which they consume.
Now this is a very dangerous game we are playing. Especially when you consider that every person has there own belief systems and ideologies. These grouped with the responsibility of controlling what the masses are exposed to, often breed agendas. These agendas are especially questionable when you take into consideration that the ones controlling the information, are high up in society with an innate drive to maintain wealth and stature. Therefore, with our only mainstream sources of understanding the world around us having questionable intentions, another generation was doomed to idly perceive the world, the way that the powers that be want them to.
In comes the internet.
Now we have a wealth of endless information from a range of varied sources at out fingertips. No longer are we bound by the pre-conceptualized opinions of the mainstream media. It’s un-regulated and uncensored, anyone from a fascist to a patriot can publish there spin on the happenings of society to the entire world. This is a beautiful era we live in, were the people control the information in which they consume.
Sadly… It’s clear that the powers that be are growing increasingly nervous, as they lose there steely grips on the control of information. We are seeing more and more desperate efforts to infiltrate the unregulated nature of the web, with the likes of NET NEUTRALITY and other methods of blatant censorship.
Of cause… we could have seen this coming, after all history repeats itself. Any movement that breeds a generation of free-thinkers, is often stamped out. Look at the counter-culture of the 60’s. Thousands of citizens take this strange new hallucinogenic drug and decide they don’t want a war in Vietnam. Instead, they want love and peace. It’s the same now, except our mind-altering substance is the internet rather than LSD, and the war were fighting? The information war. The final decision of who controls our perceptions. The people, or the government
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The problem with past counter-cultures, is that they remained as the ‘counter’ of cultures. The media controlled the way we saw these groups people. The internet on the other hand, regulates itself, by the entire worlds varied perceptions of society. With the decentralized nature of the network, we stand a very good chance of winning this battle, and with groups like anonymous popping up it is clear that the people can have the power.
Of cause, it’s not all good times, like with any great power there is responsibilities, and negative consequences if we do not fulfil these responsibilities.
Like anything, there’s a dark side.
With society and technology getting more and more fast paced, the demand for more condensed and precise information is growing. Were starting to live in a world of instant gratification. High speed porn, encyclopaedia of encyclopaedia of information, flying at us at an unfathomable amount of terabyte’s a second. Again and again were beginning to skip straight to the reward.
The way motivation works is that a human being is rewarded for his hard work by feel good chemicals blasting around the rewards centre of the brain. With the the way the internet’s heading, we are increasingly bypassing straight to the reward as a society. The need for hard work is unnecessary
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Yes, consuming more information at once can be good, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed and as humans we will eventually grow comfortable with skipping straight to the gratification. This could land us in an even bigger trap of never progressing, and having our attention cnsumed by companies with agenda’s such as Facebook. Thus making the internet, nothing more than a method of advertisement consumption. We need to be very careful how we approach this new influx of information, or we might find our selves in an even more darker system of perception control, flawed by it’s own design.
–THE LONELY WEST–
The Lonely West 