Get Herald RSSLet's pause to think about the Internet. From e-mail to research and from blogging to on-line shopping, the boundaries between cyberspace and ordinary life are rapidly diminishing. However, the easy access to information and the free exchange of ideas the Internet affords is as liberating and constraining as it is exciting and scary.
There are many who unreservedly celebrate the Internet. Take, for example, the Digital Literacy Contest held last week on campus. In promoting Internet research skills, the company that hosted the test makes the provocative claim that the Internet is a "cognitive prosthetic." That is to say, it is a tool as important to thinking as an artificial leg is to ambulation.
There can be no doubt that the Internet is widely regarded as an indispensable tool in modern life. In fact, the idea of its indispensability has so much currency that some claim John McCain is inadequately prepared to be a modern president because he lacks competent Internet skills.
The widespread belief in the essentiality of the Internet raises interesting issues about our dependence on it. We recall how Janis Joplin sang "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" in the 1970s. Though we know that her words resonated when the Vietnam War was raging and anti- establishment anger was buzzing, we ask you to consider the timelessness of her message by inquiring whether the Internet is a possession that possesses us because it is too important to lose.
Lest you think this is an irrelevant question, ask yourself whether your life would be materially altered without the Internet. Would your daily existence be the same if you could not shop on Amazon, research on Google, routinely check your e-mails or watch YouTube? If the answer to any of these questions is no, permit us to suggest that the Internet possesses you more than you possess it.
We also ask you to ponder to what extent the Internet controls the flow of information in our society. Newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post now disseminate more news on their Web sites than they do from the sales of their newspapers. Network and Cable news giants such as NBC and Fox augment and daily reproduce their national broadcasts on their Web sites. And new Internet web sites such as Politico.com and the Daily Kos threaten to supplant the mainstream media.
The net result is that the Internet may replace newspapers and television one day. There is also the possibility that filmmakers may make major studios obsolete by presenting their movies directly to the public via pay-per-view sites on the Internet.
These developments may presage a greater democratization of access to information on the Internet. For example, if Yale University already makes taped lectures of some of its best courses available on-line on its Web site, one can imagine other universities following suit. And if this could be done with education, why couldn't there be Internet access to the great libraries of the world or to leading cultural events such as theater, opera and ballet?
While such a democratization of access would be felicitous, it also carries with it a danger of abuse, since an Internet that has the capacity to spread good information also has the capacity to peddle pedophilia or disseminate disinformation about the parentage of Sarah Palin's baby or Obama's religion.
Thus Internet freedom, like any freedom, requires vigilance and comes at a heavy cost.
