An Internet Tutorial
by Jonathan Leger
jleger@cp-tel.net
CHATPER V : Comments on the Global Village
Where
are we, and where are we going?
CyberSpace has certainly changed over the past 7 years. The internet has gone from a text-only medium to one that's filled with pictures and sound and video. Millions of people are now getting online to see what the hype is all about, and rarely do any get off once they're on.
Yes, the internet can be addicting, especially if you're an information addict (like me!). More and more commercial sites are realizing that in order to keep customers, they have to feed their visitors information regarding the products and services that they are looking for.
Where will we be five, ten years down the road? Well, it's been estimated that better then $1 trillion dollars of commerce will cross over the 'net in the year 2000. Others have said that the internet is going to be as common as the television, and at present growth rates, I can't argue with that.
The real questions that are coming into play now involve sticky issues like privacy. Is an e-mail as private as a paper letter that you receive in your mailbox? Should there be laws that protect intrusion to this new medium? Should spam, junk e-mail, be illegal? Should pornography be outlawed, or should some means of regulating it be instituted? If so, how do you get the whole world to cooporate and come to the same conclusion regarding these issues?
When the satelite was first invented, the idea was that it would carry only education information. Obviously, things have not gone according to plan. In the same way, the internet was at first a military, then an educational, project. But now it's growing more and more commercial every day.
Being a general advocate for avoiding the television except to watch the occasional movie or television show (because I don't want my brain to atrophy from sheer boardom), I really hope that the internet does not fall into the same mire that TV has. My hopes, however, are not high.
If you're worried about your children being online, there's only one thing that I can tell you: educate them. Your children only have the values that you instill into them. If you don't want them looking at sites that you consider degrading or immoral, YOU are responsible for teaching them the proper view of such things. I can gaurantee you that your children are not going to get such moral values from school (and certainly not from the television!)
Will the brunt of the world's commerce
shift to some electronic medium as many movies have displayed?
Will everybody be glued in front of their monitor 24-7? Will the
computer screen replace the textbook for learning?
Maybe for the rest of the world, but not for me. I shop online, I do, but I love going into little shops in little towns. I adore the printed medium. I love books and bookstores where I can flip through the pages and the table of contents, where I can sit in the visitors chair and read as I decide whether or not this book is for me.
And no amount of virtual reality can make up for that.
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Click here to get it!
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My internet tutorial is an excellent start for learning your way around the internet.
But, to really become a cyber-pro, you'll want to get
The Internet For Dummies. I highly recommend it. Here's what others are saying about it:
A reader from Ontario. Canada , March 30, 1999
A reader from U.S. , March 6, 1999 |
Comments or suggestions about this chapter? Please send them to me at jleger@cp-tel.net.
