pro et contra: internet

I wonder how people evaluate the internet. I see it as a positive experience, largely to do with being able to prune your interaction to suit, quite unlike TV. Useful apps kill most ads that are on webpages too.

The internet is of course a double edged sword: it can swallow fathoms of time if you allow it.

I like the internet as it is a kind of two-way communication: depending on what you put in, you get something back. As such it is vastly superior to TV which is one way only and leads to your brain slowly dying off....

The technology, like most (but not all) such creations, is itself value-neutral. Honestly, the two best things for me are the access to reference-information which I otherwise couldn't get without a ninety-minute car-ride, and the possibility of meeting interesting people whom I almost certainly would never have met otherwise. On the other hand, I have known decent intelligent people to be put into the path of real, literal, criminal behaviour by it. Ironically, as much as I loathe, say, FOX-TV and all it stands-for, I cannot accuse IT of the same thing -- yet. Almsot twenty years ago my dear friend Marilyn Whitaker, during the first euphoric years of the 'net, said the following, and with the benefit of hind-sight, I believe her observation is as true now as it was then: the Internet will not make us better people -- it will just make us better shoppers. Peace to you all, -- Goddard