World Wide Web & Its History

I believe for my generation, we don't really see the Internet as this big invention or huge jump in society. I believe this because we don't know what life was like without it. Whenever we want to know a sport stat, a historical fact, or have a 10 page research paper (man those aren't those fun?) we simply go to Google and type a statement relating to our question. It is as simple as that when before the Internet that information wasn't right at our finger tips. Sports stats would have to be argued for hours and made up on the spot, historical facts were just more credible with age, and those research papers were taken from encyclopedias, not Wikipedia. It was just really interesting to know that this idea of access to all of our knowledge existed before I and many more have ever thought. All the way back to the Ramayana, 1000 B.C.

So who actually is to blame for the "death of the web"? I believe that it is not "them" or "us." It is a combination. We as humans love to know someone cares and we want to be able to express ourselves to everyone. These two things come together to make us use the Internet more to express ourselves and learn more about our friends and family instead of accessing the web for information. Simply put, we crave entertainment more than knowledge. Companies and social networks know this and are out to make money. They give us easy access to these kinds of websites (Facebook, Pandora, Tumblr) to entertain ourselves on as well as make them money. I don't think either one can be completely blamed but if we actually want the web to be used primarily for knowledge, companies need to cut down on the entertainment and focus much more on the knowledge aspects. In turn, we as the users need to give more attention to the sites providing knowledge.