Digital Communication

I don't even know where to start on this question. I literally cannot imagine what my life would have been like without the Internet.

That being said, I think that (A) most people don't realize just how old the Internet is (it was around long before Facebook) and (B) a lot of people misunderstand the Internet's potential.

I was born at the very tail end of the '80's, so I'm not old enough to have seen the entire history of the Internet. I missed Usenet and so forth. So, to me, the Internet went through two stages. There was the Web of the early to late '90's, when a community larger than the server room's staff began to adopt the technology but it wasn't yet mainstream - during that era, everyone online had this sense of excitement, of freedom, of limitless possibilities. What could this "Internet" thing do? Who knows, but let's try!

I think that some of that ethos has carried over, but the Internet has also slowly evolved into something else as it's gone mainstream. Some negative things have resulted - like the proliferation of the hive mind's uglier side, which is illustrated very well in this Ars Technica story about a man from a security firm who tried to track down Anonymous.

However, I still think that the Internet has a lot of positive things to offer. I think it's such a wonderful opportunity to be connected to everyone with less regard for accessibility barriers that one may face in real life. It provides forums for minority populations to have a real voice. It exposes people to new art they'd never have discovered otherwise. Et cetera. I hope that the era of net-neutrality stays around for a long time.

Daniel Crosby