Changing Attitudes To the Internet

Discussion in 'Other Reminiscences' started by Ruth Belena, Apr 23, 2015.

  1. Ruth Belena

    Ruth Belena Veteran Member
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    Do you remember when the Internet was known as the Information Superhighway? It was a time when the main function of having a computer connected to the Internet was to share and retrieve information. Email was then a new form of communication, which only a minority of people used. Websites were largely fact based.

    Then along came the development of Internet shopping, social media, music downloads, access to TV shows and movies and much more. I think this is why we no longer think of it as the Information Superhighway.

    Most of us now take it for granted we can find out anything we want to know using a search box, and many people think the Internet is mainly for social networking, shopping, viewing the latest news, downloading and for sharing their opinion on everything and about everyone.

    It's hard for a lot of people to even imagine life without it. l've loved using the Internet ever since I first accessed it back in the day when it featured far less information than it does now.
     
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  2. Tina Randall

    Tina Randall Veteran Member
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    The Internet has certainly changed the world, hasn't it? Sadly, it's more the Misinformation Highway now. While it's a wonderful tool for research on any topic and for self-education, it's also much easier for idiots and hate-mongerers to disseminate ridiculous conspiracy theories and fallacies. Look how many hoaxes go around Facebook - it takes only a few hours to have a complete untruth being quoted as true around the world.
     
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  3. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    How does that differ from the lies we're told by the mainstream media and the government every day? I don't believe everything I read on the Internet but the likelihood of a particular news item from a random blogger or Facebook post being correct is probably higher than what we get from MSNBC or the White House press secretary.
     
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  4. Mal Campbell

    Mal Campbell Supreme Member
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    I'd like to thank Al Gore for inventing the internet in 1999, 30 years after it was started. I worked for the Department of Defense back in the '80s, and DARPAnet was old technology then. Like @Ruth Belena said, it was used mostly to move information from one agency or company to another. I remember we had modems then, you had to call a phone number, wait to get the funny tone, then put the phone into the modem acoustic coupler. You had to do it fast, or the tone would stop and it wouldn't work. It also operated at 300 baud. Talk about slow. You could ask for a document, get up and go get coffee and when you came back it might be halfway through.

    Things certainly have changed in the intervening 30 years. I guess truthfully, instead of thanking Mr. Gore, we should be thanking the porn industry, as much of the early non-government files were not exactly......ummm.....legal.
     
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