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 Traditional methods of reading and writing have not been replaced by the web, but are used less frequently as university students will moan at the thought of reading a text book or answering written exams.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/
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Find out your web animal visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/
