Now We Have the Internet, But Why Do We Need It?

ReLik writes "BBC News is reporting on a survey carried out on the statistics of internet users in the UK, 'While the battle for digital access is being won, we now face a struggle to convince everyone the net is worth using' said Professor Richard Rose, of the Oxford Internet Institute. It begs the question why goverments around the world are encouraging everyone to use the internet, but is there really enough of a reason for everybody to need to? Is the internet suitable for everybody? Will it ever be?"

Comments

YES!

[Kedisar]

It begs the question why goverments around the world are encouraging everyone to use the internet, but is there really enough of a reason for everybody to need to? Is the internet suitable for everybody? Will it ever be?"

Everyone should have access to the internet. I know there is a lot of bad things on there, but there is so much more good. Wikipedia, Google, all that stuff; if it weren't for the internet, I'd know practically nothing. It makes research so much easier than driving all the way up to the library, sifting through books and magazines and not even finding the right info.

It allows for fast and easy gathering of information and images, and sharing of all kinds of data (and I don't mean just Kazaa...)

Of course, we don't need the internet, but, we don't really need anything besides food and water, either.

Re:YES!

[DwarfGoanna]

"..if it weren't for the internet, I'd know practically nothing. It makes research so much easier than driving all the way up to the library, sifting through books and magazines and not even finding the right info."

First, I want to make a shirt with that slogan =).

But seriously, if you'll allow me to turn my paranoid rant goggles on, doesn't this allow for the simple erasing of undesirable history, culture, memes, whatever? In many countries, the internet is not exactly a private infrastructure. Governments can and do control access to it, and to some exent, they at least try to control the data on it. Yes, it is much more egalitarian than say, broadcast television. But that is right now. What will the internet be in 20 years? What was it like 10 years ago? While many of us are hoping for The Street ala Snow Crash, I suspect there is a reasonable possibility we will wind up with regionalized AOL-esque services, and a some sort of wasteland like Freenet.

When governments push anything, it is usually all the better to govern us with. =/

maps.yahoo.com

[timothy]

Google.

Exchanging email with family.

Finding recipes.

Reading people's websites.

C'mon, "who needs the Internet?" is a silly question. The Internet is tremendously useful now (and offers lots of "unproductive" stuff, too -- quotes because the line between productive and unproductive is a mostly useless, fuzzy gray line not worth respecting in the way it's usually used) and will be more and more later on. People survived without it, just like you would survive without any of the foods you like best, or without recorded music, or without being able to read ... handwringing about their "usefulness" doesn't exactly excite me as an important philosophical point.

timothy

100%

[CGP314]

Look at the graph. 100% of students use the Internet. Just wait a generation and everyone will be online all the time. Once you start down the internet path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Re:Thats a ridiculous question to ask the internet

[Zocalo]

You missed one: Products at discount prices, delivered direct to your door. That can mean "Generic Viagra" if you want, but also everything from books to airplanes, the mundane to the exotic. While, I still get my groceries at the local supermarket so that I know it's fresh and I like browsing for clothing, pretty much everything else I get online.

Re:silly question

[SuperDuG]

Sort of bad examples, because automobiles and heart surgery have helped shaped society and brought new advances in the ages.

Sort of along those same lines the question of "Do we need telephones, cable/satellite tv, etc." Basically making the point that the internet is another form of media delievery. Just so happens that cable/satellite tv is one way and the telephone is usually limited to one person, you have a broad content on demand information delievery service combined with a great communication tool that has standardized itself that for everyone on the internet, it's local.

So has the internet had a chance to shape society? Not yet, the "children of the internet" are still in college, and still just getting their first jobs. We (the children of the internet) won't be running the world for about 20 more years, you know right about the time the internet stops being cool?

But it will be a pivot point, when the standard of the internet starts to full replace medium delivery options it will make antiquated, such as cable/satellite TV and the telephone. It's already been proven that you can watch a sitcom on the internet and make a phone call on the internet. When it's standard that everyone has some type of "messenger" and standard voice and visual components, we'll have a valid replacement for the telephone/television.

But yeah, I do still agree with you, just thought that comparing the internet to something as vital for life as heart surgery or the automobile was a bit not fair to heary surgery and the automobile.

It's a timesaver

[Infonaut]

Basically the Internet lets you do certain things more rapidly. You can find information, share information, buy and sell goods and services online more rapidly than you can without the Internet.

While this may sound like a luxury, throughout human history "free time" has been an indicator of wealth. Those who have to spend all of their time on day to day tasks have less time for leisure. Those who have mechanisms (servants, for example) at hand to take care of the myriad little tasks that pop up in daily life therefore have more time to spend doing whatever they like.

The Internet shortens the amount of time we have to spend on arranging the minutiae of life, and provides the *option* to spend more of our time on pursuits that we find enjoyable. How people spend that extra time (by working that much harder, by watching more TV, by going on a hike, etc.) is up to the individual. But if the duty of a representative government is to help improve the quality of its citizens' lives, then a robust Internet infrastructure is something governments should be pursuing.

The above points don't even touch on the *potential* productivity gains possible through true integration of the Internet into the fabric of business and government.

Internet Is A Nice Network, But The Content Sucks

[reallocate]

>> ... It begs the question why goverments around the world are encouraging everyone to use the internet...

I didn't know anyone was asking that question, which is based on a doubtful premise.

But, the Internet is just a big network. By itself, it is empty. The real question is this:

Is the content made available by the Internet worth it?

My answer:

Content created by "old" media and made available via the net is worth it. E.g., having on-demand access to the best news reports around the globe is very much worth it.

But, content created by "new" born-after-the-Net media is largely useless, consisting of silly and hopeless attempts to mimic other media and with polished spins on old-fashioned bulletin boards.

Re:Its more efficient than going to a library

[Jucius Maximus]

"The internet is quick, you can learn about anything at the click of a button, you dont have to spend hours at the library looking through books,"

Exactly. The best analogy I can come up with for this is that the internet allows information which was previously 'liquid' to become 'gaseous' so it expands effortlessly and is practically impossible to contain. (Information went from solid to liquid with the invention of the printing press.)