What is it that makes the Internet so compelling to so many? Aside from the obvious fun and entertainment, educational and business opportunities, and show-offism; I think it boils down to a slogan taken from the eighties. No fear! The playing field is level. Size doesn't matter, really. Inhibitions and reservations are out the window.
Internet life is people with diseases and addictions, exposing souls and sharing their recoveries. It's about overviews of history warning future generations not to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. Sure there are a few kooks to throw us off guard, but mostly the Net is just us being ourselves without fear of reprisal. How refreshing.
The Internet is people talking and sharing ideas. Our best and brightest, wallflowers and flower children, the girl next door and the Doc who delivered your kids. It's about you and me. We are all using our own cognizant voices, and we're listening too. We're challenging the status quo, and we're offering alternatives. Collaboration on a global scale all tied together by that simplest of cyber friendships, the hyperlink. Communication has never seen anything like it.
I first considered all this ten years ago when that sociology study came out. Another ten years later, my life is even more enriched by the Internet.
So to answer your question, I don't think it's the Internet that has whacked your brain, I think you might want to be looking elsewhere. If anything, the Internet is keeping you stimulated.
thinkahol * on 20 May 11"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."- John F. KennedyThere's one thing for sure: 2008 isn't anything like politics as usual.The corporate media (with their unerring eye for the obvious point) is fixated on the narrative that, for the first time ever, Americans will likely end this year with either a woman or a black man headed for the White House. Bloggers are telling stories from the front lines of primaries and caucuses that look like something from the early 60s - people lining up before dawn to vote in Manoa, Hawaii yesterday; a thousand black college students in Prairie View, Texas marching 10 miles to cast their early votes in the face of a county that tried to disenfranchise them. In recent months, we've also been gobstopped by the sheer passion of the insurgent campaigns of both Barack Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom brought millions of new voters into the conversation - and with them, a sharp critique of the status quo and a new energy that's agitating toward deep structural change.There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be - at long last - that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government - and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season - the kind we get every 20 to 30 years - or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we're going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?Recently, I came across a pocket of sociological research that suggested a tantalizing answer to these questions - and also that America may be far more ready for far more change than anyone really believes is possible at this moment. In fac
