Advent 09- The Internet and World Wide Web

I love the internet.  We so often take it for granted today that it's easy to forget that twenty years ago it wasn't there- at least, not as we know it.  No email, no Facebook, no iPlayer, no YouTube, no blogs!  What I am doing now would have been impossible before the 1990's.  Even BBC iPlayer, something that's been around only two years or so, has now become something many of us take completely for granted.

Through Facebook I've been able to keep in touch with what my friends are up to once they left university and spread out across the country.  I've been able to reconnect with people I haven't seen since I was sixteen.  I've been able to hear from family members I rarely see because they live far away- and sometimes realise we have friends in common!  I've been able to share photos and even videos, without having to nag friends for copies.  And I've been able to use blogging to stop myself going mad in an under-demanding job.  A friend even met her boyfriend via an online game.

The internet isn't all sweetness and light, of course.  There is a darker side, just as there is with any form of technology or indeed pretty much any aspect of life.  But no one's suggested we shut down Royal Mail because a letter might contain poison chemicals or a  parcel might be a bomb.  We just have to recognise the possible dangers of the medium we're using to communicate- and remember not to make anything public if we don't want it to be public!

So I think the internet/ web is a Good Thing.  As well as the above social uses, there are of course many uses for academic research and co-operation, (which is of course its' original purpose), and communication for businesses, for shopping and finding those random bits of information you suddenly need, like the words to a song or where the nearest Chinese takeaway is.  And what will we be using it for in twenty years time?  I look forward to finding out (if I can still understand how to use it by then...!