Has the Internet Changed Our Lives for the Better? | Jimboland Jots

We understand the Internet to be a complex set of interconnected technologies, objects, and devices that not only have the potential to revolutionize society, but are already transforming our thinking, doing, and living. Any traditional media that is not fully interactive, like broadcast television or plain old telephone service (POTS) or printed newspapers, is starting to radically change or they are disappearing altogether, as in the wave of recent newspaper closings.

We micro/blog, tweet, read, write, buy and shop, pay bills, and more online. Personally, with an active vocational and social life in the real world, these technologies are enhancements to – though not replacements for – social living. I also watch streaming or recorded video, produce video, and recently had a blog article that got nearly 33000 visitors over a 30 hour period. Nearly 100% of my music comes from Internet sources. I used the Internet to research my doctoral dissertation, use Skype and VoIP, and have had a website since 1994, when it was hosted on an FTP server. Socially, many friends were met while using the bulletin board service (BBS), which presaged the Internet and social media in the 1980s.

In many ways, the Internet is similar to how television was for decades: it is everywhere and everyone uses it. Fantastically easy to use applications, like iMovie, are to social web users what the printing press was for Europe. These widely available and accessible applications are simultaneously liberating the creativity of multiple generations. The social web of interconnected things, the semantic web, is already here and we are only beginning to appreciate it.

How has your life changed with these technologies?

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