Those who know how to write, and want to share their ideas in this fantastically rich environment, are lost in the mulch piles of the wanna-be marketing gurus. Where once a search for particular information turned up a page or two of relevant, worthwhile resources, it may now take a determined surfer hours to find the needed information, ploughing through endless pages of nonsensical articles related only to the search through manipulative keywords strewn throughout otherwise irrelevant material.
The Internet is a boon for all of us. No longer do we have to pore through encyclopedias or run down to the library to seek out wanted information. A five second search can give us that name on the tip of our tongue or the date of some event that has been eluding us. We can shop online, review menus before we commit to going out, find forms for every purpose, and obtain legal and health information that saves us the money and time required to consult a professional. We can get our questions answered, our problems addressed, and our loneliness assuaged in forums, chat rooms, and message boards.
None of want to see the Net regulated. It still has a frontier spirit about it: no fences, no rules, no red tape, no social hierarchy. We can become whatever we want in its virtual anonymity. We can grow and learn and develop ourselves in ways that never existed before the advent of the personal computer. We can reach across the world as quickly as across the room, touching lives and interacting with others as never before possible.
All that being said, doesn’t such freedom also carry basic responsibilities? To embrace the positives and avoid a threatened overdoes of uselessness, we need to be what the Existentialists call “authentic.” We can be whoever and whatever we please, as long as we are ourselves. Such a powerful force for the growth of humanity demands that we approach it honestly and respectfully.
On an even playing field, unencumbered with cultural, social, or religious restrictions, we can communicate with each other at an hitherto impossible individual and intimate level. To continue to develop these incredibly exciting opportunities, we need to be wary of the scam sharks that circle our every click.
Scams are not just the phishing sites, the strident letters from African widows, or the non-existent lottery winnings, they are also the shysters and cheaters who pass off the creations of others as their own and go into a feeding frenzy whenever a new piece of software appears that promises, for a substantial fee, to develop thousands of pages overnight that will generate income without effort and create experts out of neophytes.
The search engine monitors are very good at their job. We can only hope that they can stay one step ahead of the glut now gushing forth. If not, we may eventually crush the electronic goose, and its golden eggs will become only a fading memory of what might have been.