As mentioned in my last post, this is an age of information. We can access almost any statistic or bit of knowledge with the click of a button. However, this does not mean that it is relevant, good to know, or even true. This is a part of Web 2.0; we can all contribute and improve the content, but are we all knowledgeable in the issues. Consider the election. Did everyone who voted have a clear idea of every candidate they voted for? I highly doubt it. otherwise, we couldn't choose vote all Rep or all Dem.
the greatest example I have of this is wikipedia. anyone can contribute and anyone can read it. There was a time when someone wrote on the LDS church and the Book of Mormon with entirely inaccurate information. How did this influence people studying the belief system? False ideas can cause more harm than good, and the only way to check it while still allowing the free flow of information is to have others edit it.
In the end, the majority will find the correct answer. I believe this was related to the concept of the long tail. This leads slightly to the idea of whether it is relevant. (: we can perform a google search and receive countless hits with nothing really matching what we are looking for. The information online is often not necessary or only relevant to a select minority. This does not make it bad, but it makes it wasteful. Luckily, we seem to not face limitations in the digital realm.
Information is widely distributed in this day and age, but not all of it is worthwhile. We still must search through it and seek other's opinions, but we can find vast amounts of information that would be difficult to attain without our modern culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment