I remember the days when we could spend hours going from one interesting link on the internet to another. Ah, when the web was young (and so was I). The web was full of amazing ideas and discussions and little communities built up around particular interests and you could actually have conversations with people in comment sections, and because it required a little bit of self-education to get on and surf the web most posters treated each other as equals and conversations remained polite and kind (at least the groups I participated in.)
What brought on this nostalgia attack? A nice little article dating from the year 2000. I bought my first HTML book in 1997. At that time I used the internet for meeting men to date and communicating with my parents. Interestingly, Rebecca Blood dates the first 23 blogs to 1999. Trying to remember what the web was like back when I had my first baby, who now could be in college, is the reason for the nostalgia attack. It was before 9/11 changed the world. But after I met my husband online, and after my college went to 100% online course registration and required everyone to check their school given email addresses weekly.
I remember one school paper on Hamlet that I didn't have enough source materials for, so I went to the web and ended up quoting some of the work a high school English class put up. It satisfied the teacher, although there were no conventions on citing it yet.
Rebecca Blood points out "These weblogs provide a valuable filtering function for their readers. The web has been, in effect, pre-surfed for them. Out of the myriad web pages slung through cyberspace, weblog editors pick out the most mind-boggling, the most stupid, the most compelling." This is one of my favorite reason for the blogs I frequented, most had pre-selected, or even curated a selection of news or articles that were important to me, mostly on subjects of ecology, economy, and midwifery. I even have a section on this blog where I summarize a book on global warming called 6 Degrees. As overwhelming as a change of 6 degrees seemed at the time, there is no doubt we are living through a lot of it now.
I also agree with Rebecca's conclusion, some of the most valuable things the internet does is to allow the little guy a voice, whether it is inside view of a war zone or a sting to corporate media it is what the world needed then, and still needs now.
2 comments:
Here is an interesting story of web-based work that didn't exist back in the early days of the internet. https://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516754307&sr=8-1&keywords=6+degrees
Hi Raya- I also was drawn to the quote you used from Blood's article because I also find it very comforting that I can find a blog I trust to do the work of sorting out useful information for me and delivering to me only what's relevant.
This concept, while comforting and convenient on one hand, is unnerving in another way. Sometimes I wonder what I am missing. Should I trust someone else to sort through it for me? It reminds me of the online surveillance controversy. Do I want Amazon and Barnes and Noble spying on me so they can provide me with awesome recommendations, or will their recommendations actually limit my choices and turn me into a more narrow-minded person?
Pros and cons of filters... new ideas to explore. Thanks!
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