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The Web has offered us a lot of things. We get to meet and socialize with our friends and to our relatives even beyond local or national boundaries; we get to shop even if we are inside our home or in offices; we get to be informed and updated about current events even if we don’t get it from traditional media; and we get to earn degrees even if we do not go to schools or universities to attend hours of lectures. These innovations are not new in the world of the digital natives[1]. These have now been embedded in our culture.
These phenomena have been part of us already because we grew up with the Web; however there are still a lot of issues and limitations that are associated with it, as presented in the third and fourth episodes of the Virtual Revolution.
The first issue is the way we share information. True enough that the Web has opened an avenue to democratize information to everyone who needs it. Personally, the Web has been vital especially to my academics because of it, I can easily access all the information that I needed in a very little span of time and in just a simple click I get all the data I need for a class. But this has its own disadvantage to me because I do not get all the pertinent information that is essential for my course. The result of my Web behaviour examination maybe true about my being a Web Ostrich which is a fast searcher but does not get accurate results[2]. Another reason maybe because of the internet’s wide range of choices for a searcher, it leaves him at lost with all the available data on the Web.
The second issue that the Web has as shown in the documentary is that it does not leave a borderline between our public and personal self anymore.
There are a lot of things that people do on the web which are very, very intimate. In a way, you know what somebody’s browsing on the Web, you’ll find out whether somebody is gay and wondering about coming-out, looking other people’s stories… These are all kinds of very, very sensitive things that people do on the web.[3]
I agree with Sir Tim Berners Lee with his point that we do a lot of things on the web that are very sensitive and very intimate. I believe that it is truly an intrusion to one’s privacy if other people will know your actions within the internet especially if it is unsolicited and worse, the person who uses the web does not have any idea that he is being monitored by somebody. I interviewed some of my friends about their reactions and insights if they were being monitored or surveillance is running while they are surfing the Web, and the result of the interview was against the surveillance. My friend Dane, whose face really turned into awe as I told her about it, said that she cannot believe it. She only thought that Dilnet, the internet provider inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, was the only one who can monitor the sites that the students can visit. And that she cannot believe that even at her own personal house, she is still monitored by someone. “Akala ko Dilnet lang ang may kakayahang i-check and mga websites that we visit. I really can’t believe this.Are you really sure, baka naman mali lang source mo,” Dane added during the interview.
“In return for a Free Web, our privacy has become a commodity. We are economic units in what has become the new commercial frontier,” said Dr. Aleks Krotoski. I could believe that this is the real happening or the real business on the Web. The documentary said that it is a way for some companies on the Web to determine the needs and to have a clear psychographics of their market and audience. Dr. Krotoski demonstrated in the show how Google scans every message of an individual and how it gives recommendations to you for you to click. And by clicking it, Google earns. According to Dr. Krotoski, that since we are not spending for the services of Google, they need to earn back and through advertising, they earn a relatively very high amount of cash and that it is the cost of free services we get from it.
Knowing this from the documentary, I could not believe how I was betrayed by the Web, or by the people behind this phenomenon! All this time I thought my actions on the web are surveillance-free and that I can search about anything and watch almost anything online! What about the things I posted on my blogs?! What about my personal details?! What about my personal photos that should only be kept offline?! I think the most dangerous piece of information that could be traded about me is that my dad owns a lot of guns and weapons of various calibres. These photos were uploaded in one of my accounts in SNSs. Now we are in danger especially if this information is traded to our enemies or to people who are against my dad.
If I am Google and be able to have this tactic, and for me as a form of revenge for getting this data about me, I will trade the information or even the sites being visited by the Unites States of America President Barack Obama. And that I will trade that information to the country who wanted to have a insight on how to take over the current stature of USA as the most powerful country in the world.
Another issue presented to us by the documentary The Virtual Revolution is the Web’s power to reshape humanity. The very rampant way on how the Web reshapes humanity is the devaluation of friendship. As Dr. Aleks Krotoski said in the show that Facebook gives friendship a lesser value and importance than what it used to have when it was not yet created. I think this is true. On this date, I have 2,116 friends in Facebook, and the quarter of it I personally do not know. I do not send as much messages on the Facebook walls of my really close friends, but of classmates and acquaintances yes. Maybe this also agrees with what the author of Here Comes Everybody said that no one has really friends that can reach up to thousands.
Another fact that was stated in the documentary is that the Web makes us immortal. On one side this is an advantage for us especially to those whose research relies on archives. It is also an avenue to know our roots by this feature, we are free to look at photos that our relatives in the past.
Once it’s on the Web, it is almost impossible to erase. All our interactions on the Web from our Facebook and Twitter status updates, to news that we share with family and friends, to gossip that’s spread about us, will be on line for ever. The web effectively makes us immortal. The upside is that we can live on. There are thousands of dead people who are still receiving updates and even being poked on Facebook. But the downside is that young people, who are growing up in public by living so much of their lives on the web, will have to face living with all their youthful indiscretions that can be accessed by anyone.[4]
I agree with Dr. Krotoski’s point that it makes us immortal however that it also has disadvantages especially if your credibility and personality is at stake. Blogging, uploading photos and videos, and posting almost anything on your Facebook wall, and tweeting almost every other second maybe a normal activity to do especially in our age today. But do we realize what the implications might lead to when our children and grandchildren saw and read these posts? I do not think so. Maybe we are not informed about this, and we cannot do anything with these posts anymore because according to Professor Nigel Shadbolt of University of Southampton, these remains as our digital fingerprint which is as much as valuable as our genetic fingerprint.[5]
With these issues, I believe there is a strong need for us to guide and educate our children properly on their internet usage especially those who just use the Web for granted. However, I believe that we should not limit the Web because the real essence or the real purpose of the internet which is to provide unlimited information and data will be diminished. My suggestion will be to just properly educate the users and the ones who guide these users for them to know the advantages and disadvantages of using the Web and that if we have a high level of internet literacy, we then can have no problem with whatever panics it might cause.
[1] John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. (Basic Books; 2008)
[2] Web Behaviour Test by BBC. Read my results at http://upcybernomads.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-my-offline-self-meets-my-online.html.
[3] Tim Berners Lee in episode 3 of The Virtual Revolution
[4] Dr. Aleks Krotoski in the 3rd Episode of The Virtual Revolution
