Anyway Dr Krotoski says that the web has taken "our world and shaken it apart." My first reaction was "Dinny be silly, the internet is a good thing!" But I'm only exposing myself to the things I want to see on the internet: online shops like asos; www.poshgirlvintage.com; www.farfetch.com; www.adorevintage.com etc…or my facebook page (which I really, really must put on private - it's just madness to risk future employers spying my status's and pictures which only make sense to me and my friends and look plain awful to others!) …. or iplayer. The list goes on but the point is that I'm not seeing the power the internet is giving to the less nice people in the world.
Here is a website (looks perfectly trustworthy and helpful) on how to make a nuke:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-To-Make-An-Atomic-Bomb-53392.shtml
Excuse me? Yes, a nuclear bomb. I could easily (with some cash of course) go out now and make a pretty big bomb if I really, really wanted to. Not that I do, but it's worrying that some creep out there who has it in their head that this is their destiny to blow up people and things could do so very happily.
Dr Krotoski uses quite a few negative words when describing our virtual world: desire; control; profit; censorship…all very uncomfortable really.
A hierarchy is being created again which is ironic because the web was "designed in a way which deliberately resisted authority". The people with more resources have more power, basically.
Did you know that 1 in 3 of us have a facebook page?! That is insane. Part of me says: "Yay, I can be friends with whoever I please and I can connect to people who I thought were long gone from my life (childhood friends who I've not seen for years or people I met once but wanted to talk to again), this is a great thing." Another part just says "Oh for god's sake woman, more than half of the people in your friends on fb are people you don't even LIKE (I love the socialogical reasons behind this - do I keep them because I feel I'll have more power by seeing the pages of others and I can see what they are doing?) or even know that well, or hell, at all and it takes up so much TIME in your life when in fact, you would have stayed in touch more by phone. Or goodness me, by letters."
My best and most meaningful moments of contact with people have been on the street, away from computers and phones (there was no network to speak of) and I write to my friend in Italy and I find I'm so much more honest with her than to 99% of the facebook contacts.
Yet I still won't do the insane act of de activating my account like a friend of mine did last week…we were all in complete and utter shock. (I mean, please.)
But then Dr Krotoski says in her strangely robotic voice that the internet has opened us up to things we could have never imagined. I mean, COME ON! Do we never learn? Why do we always sound so pathetically surprised and bewildered when we start something and don't bother entertaining the thought that this just may go beyond our expectations? Why do I get the feeling we are constantly underestimating our own creations?
Now, big news. As of today I now follow Vogue and other innocuous things on Twitter. I'm starting to regret it already. I'd refused to join before because I felt that it was creepy to 'follow' people and that it would lead to some kind of new obsessive behaviour…..I don't know…..
Maybe I'll give it a week and see but I've realised with a bit of shock just how much of my life is plastered over the big www. I enjoy tagging myself in pictures and sharing funny stories online and being the first to know about something but have I gone too far?
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