by Madeleine KandoI am one of those people who like to take short-cuts whenever they can. In fact, I am famous in my family as the person who takes short-cuts through town and ends up getting lost. My children have dubbed me ‘the longest short-cut taker in the world’. So, when I want to find an answer to something I don’t know, my knee-jerk reflex is to take 5 steps across the living room and sit down at my computer. ‘Never fear, the Internet is here!’ is my motto. What an invention, I think to myself. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, at a click of my heels I am transported from Kansas to anywhere I desire in an instant.You don’t know what time it is in Hawaii? Look it up on the web. You want to know what the germination time is of string beans in New England? Go to the web. You want to find the ultimate answer to the current financial crisis? Click your heels and presto: the answer is at your fingertips!
But as with my real life short-cuts, this tactic often leads me further away from my goal than when I started.
Someone once said that the average information on the Internet is not much more useful than the advise you get from a well-intentioned, misinformed friend. Personally, I would like to compare it to shopping at Marshalls. You have to sift through 10 tons of garbage to find something half-way decent to wear. In fact, I have a suspicion that the internet is slowly making smart people more stupid and stupid people THINK they are smart.
One way to gage the value of information is to find out how much time was invested in collecting it, researching it, editing it, putting it in writing etc. But the problem with the Internet is that most of the information you look at is free. So, if information is free, who's paying to produce it? As we all know (or should know) nothing comes without a price in this cruel world.
The notion that the Internet would be accurate is an illusion. Much of it is based on opinion anyway, not fact. Facts always go on the chopping block of the opinionated (except for this blog of course). The other point against the ‘accuracy’ hypothesis is that too many people contribute to the information. The Internet is the ultimate equalizer, blurring truth and falsehood, accuracy and generality, until everything is becoming so opaque and irrelevant that much of the information is worthless.
It is ironic that in the Middle Ages information was only available to the very few (the church). But it was mostly accurate because it was produced by the few. Now, all surfers are created equal. The information on the internet is of the many, by the many and for the many. Does that make it accurate or just available?
I have reached a point in my life where I can spend more time reading about politics, history, science…. activities that are fiscally irresponsible, activities that enrich my mind, rather than my pocket book. But I am careful not to let my short-cut addiction blind me to the fact that looking for answers to more in-depth questions on the Internet is like looking for diamonds in a spider’s nest.
I have set my internal BS detection meter to its highest setting when I go on one of my short-cut surf binges. That has served me well. In fact, I recommend that the next generation PC’s come with anti-BS software pre-installed. While surfing, you would get a message that reads: ‘warning! Your machine has been infected with the BS virus. Please quarantine immediately and restart your system’.
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Your post makes good and important points about the reliability of Internet information. It triggers some thoughts - not necessarily disagreements:
1) I agree how weird it is that all these services are free: Google, Wikipedia, Skyping, not to mention My space, Face book, Twitter, U-Tube and God knows what else. I know, there are ads. And yes, Amazon, E-Bay, Craigslist and others generate a lot of business. But when was the last time you bought something based on a Google or a Skype add? And Google is worth how much as a company, I forgot, something between 50 and 100 billion $? I don’t understand. This is a mystery.
2) Sometimes I rely on Wikipedia to check on a fact, e.g. the date of a historical battle, the spelling of the name of a famous musician, etc. In a National Public Radio interview, some “expert” (I forget his name) said that Wikipedia’s level of accuracy is roughly the same as that of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
A test: check out our famous mother (Ata Kando) or a famous friend or relative (Bram de Swaan, Ed Van der Elsken) on Wikipedia. Seems pretty accurate, no?
3) Our Blog: It’s mostly opinion (ours). We don’t claim to have answers. Yes, I bring facts to bear upon my arguments, but they are generally non-negotiable facts, which don’t need to be referenced, such as: The earth is round, not flat. The higher crime rate of one race over another is caused by nurture (upbringing, socio-economics, etc.), not nature (genes and skin color). The Earth is 4 billion years old, not 6,000. The world’s temperature is rising. Astrology is BS. What time is it in Hawaii? What is the germination time of string beans? Etc. The Internet is okay for millions of such facts. They require no further research (Notice that I deliberately include some examples of facts which are still rejected by millions. That doesn’t make them any less true).
4) More accurate knowledge during the Middle Ages, because knowledge was (more) the monopoly of the elite? This idea could be challenged: For one thing, it was precisely the (Church) elite which punished heretics such as Copernicus for the truth, for example a heliocentric cosmology. As Thomas Kuhn showed in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it is precisely from the “outlying” areas that new and superior truths emerge, truths which eventually displace the false paradigms in which the establishment has a vested interest...
5) But I realize that I am (1) changing subjects on you, and that I am (2) being the devil’s advocate. I agree with you that the Internet’s excessive democratization of truth is a problem, especially when the Internet becomes a substitute for more thorough research.
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