The World Wide Web. An upgraded 20th century version of Guttenberg’s Printing Press invention? A natural outcome of progress? An advantage that people did not have in the past?
Well, some may claim that the internet and its exceptionally fast development has been a great triumph of people and technology; others may share significantly more sceptical views.
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The internet has changed the way we now communicate and some researchers believe it has changed the way the human brain learns information. Evolution of the brain functions from linear to association to digest large quantities of knowledge in snippets. Some researchers may believe that using links causes laziness and distracts the mind as the mind darts from one subject to another; however the advantage is the ability to find information at a moments notice. Traditional methods of reading and writing have not been replaced by the web, but are used less frequently as university students will moan at the thought of reading a text book or answering written exams. Students expect quick information and will skim details to get to the answer, even by Googling a topic. The Younger Generation could be viewed as thoughtless or even cheating from their ability to bounce from different information sources so quickly. As the documentary described these characteristics are those of the Fox or the Leopard web animals, while in contrast the slower animals are hedgehogs, ostrich and elephants, who take more time to consider reliable information sources.
Where can we go to have the fastest internet in the world?
South Korea - the land of technology, where babies seem to be downloaded rather than born! Statistics shockingly stated that Korean children spend 18 hours a day online! This has increased concern over internet addition. However the Korean children are extremely smart and it has contributed education. Thanks to the web, children truly see the importance of communication and intensive interaction with others. Their curiosity is supported by internet as a never ending source of information that stimulates their minds to keep asking in questions to further their growing knowledge. This particular Korean example shows that everything has its pros and cons, which only find their balance when regulated with fair boundaries. It does not seem right to support children to live in their online virtual inhuman worlds just for the sake of their ‘super-smartness’. As it has been mentioned above – it is all about limits and finding the perfect balance. 
When talking about internet, the almighty social networks cannot be omitted. It may seem that Facebook, for instance, does make friendship considerably meaningless. Who actually has 1000 real friends? No one! The “burger experiment” used in the document demonstrated this, when a fast food restaurant offered Facebookers’ a free burger for “de-friending” 10 of their Facebook. When users did delete friends, the value of online friendship became rather shady and perhaps cynical.
Researchers state “we have become a ‘Living in the Loop’ society” which can be exhausting along with our daily lives of working, studying, eating and exercising. Could this 24/7 communication be the cause of stress, as employees wake up in the middle of the night to check their emails, to keep on top of their workload? Not only do humans create new media on the web from Facebook status updates, Twitter, Blog comments, videos and pictures; our brains must also consume the web by checking emails and answer phone messages daily. To conclude we can agree that we as a web generation have become part of a virtual culture with most socialising now taking place on the online than ever before. It is clear to see the web has definitely had an impact in all of our lives, 20 years since its arrival and already so many changes, can we predict what the next 20 years will hold? What does the future hold for the internet, please Comment your views!Hannah is a web leopard, while Elodie is a hedgehog
Find out your web animal visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/
Find out your web animal visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/
So at the end whats your point of view on all this?
Husni
P.S word count? ;)
We agree with the documentary that the internet has had a huge effect on learning capabilities. However we feel young children are becoming too reliant on the web. While we support the web has created many advantages, the personal touch has been lost. The web was created to link us all part of a wider network, but how can we justify sitting in a room alone with just our laptop for company?
Like anything, our diet, exercise or our jobs - if abused and overdone it will cause negative issues and addictions. We have seen the Windows 7 adverts show parental control to limit the number of hours our children spend on the internet. While the Korean Government supported their education system, the UK may take a different approach - adverts for internet addiction, similar to anti smoking/drug or healthy eating campaigns?
Hi,
So do you think the Internet become a tool which is difficult to manage or control is evolution. As we can see it has changed some habits i.e.: for the communication do you think the people must have course (behaviour on the Internet) for it to learn how to use it correctly, how to find information, or to dont going out the limmits and learn the real value as for the relathionship.
thank you
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Here are some negative examples: a young Korea couple had spent so much time on internet, they have even had a virtual daughter there, but they starved their own baby to die in real life.
A 28 years old Korea Japanese man married to A pillow, because he fell in love with young female character printed on this pillow.
Do you really think there is balance between real life and virtual life? What is the balance?
When the virtual culture goes further, does define of the balance change?
Joli(e-avatar)
Thank you for your comments
Yes there is a problem with internet addiction as people become confussed between their virtual life and real life. This may led to Government warning campaigns in the future to educate web-users of the problems of over use of the internet, as we have already seen for obesity. It is clear some level of control is needed and support from internet providers such as google should help to educate the problems of excessive web usage.