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How has the internet changed your life? How will it change your life in the future?
Just about every day I ponder the answers of these questions for me. If I wanted to find out how fast my eye blinks right now, I would ask Google. In less time that it takes for my eye to blink, there would be over 6 million results and the answer of .33 seconds. When I was in grade school as homework for my science class, it might take me hours to find out that exact answer. It would require a trip to the library, searching the card catalog, finding biology books, and then paging through a number of them for the answer.
So, my life has changed because information is readily and immediately available on just about any topic. The fear that the information might be inaccurate has been replaced with the number of people out there ready to correct or dispute information.
I used to look around my house for a book or an unopened newspaper to read. Now, the volume of information to read overwhelms me. I find I have to turn off the computer just to get away from all the information. Whether it is just basic news sources, blogs, twitter feeds, or social media, there is just too much information and I am never done reading. There is never a satisfaction that I can close my eyes at night and know that I have been caught up with information in front of me. I find that instead of going to one more link, reading a twitter stream or checking back on my Google reader for latest blog entries, that instead I turn off the computer and read nothing.
In the future we will be filtering and organizing the volume of information available to us. How that will be done, I don’t know. But, Google tells me that there are 6 million results to the question, “how fast does your eye blink.” There is no way that any human being will or could ever go through all the results to read, understand, or evaluate them. It is ridiculous to think that that number means anything. What will that number be in the future? If the internet holds more information that mankind ever knew in total, will I have to have any information? I think our opinions, personality, individuality, and creativity will set us all apart.