I’ve been thinking about the world I remember before the internet, and the world I know now. \u00a0We are a people forever changed by a world made so much smaller. \u00a0We are connected, with the vastness of human experience and knowledge at our fingertips. \u00a0Interconnected humanity is like a new creature, huge and powerful. \u00a0And like any living thing, interconnected humanity must have a life cycle: birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and death.<\/p>\n
Think about the mid 90s, and what The Internet looked like. \u00a0The Internet struggled to find a common language. \u00a0Static websites dotted the surface of the landscape, experimental and naive. \u00a0Like an infant learning to lift its head, we toyed around with different browsers. \u00a0We could see the potential of The Internet, but we needed more infrastructure and more language before that potential could be realized.<\/p>\n
A few years later, search engines started to appear on the web, making it easier to find each other. \u00a0Bandwidth began to grow. \u00a0The earliest web applications were born, and more dynamic content started to show us what we might one day do with The Internet.<\/p>\n
Just before the year 2000, The Internet entered a period\u00a0of stunning growth. \u00a0New businesses came into being. \u00a0The Dot Com Era sprang up, like a toddler taking its first steps. \u00a0And like the toddler, we fell a few times while we were learning to walk.<\/p>\n
Now, we have greater sophistication. \u00a0We have Google and Amazon and other business models that could never have existed before The Internet. \u00a0The Internet is like The Force, surrounding us and binding us together. \u00a0It’s on our phones. \u00a0It’s in the air. \u00a0We are all connected, all the time, talking, texting, typing. \u00a0Young adults today have never known a time\u00a0when The Internet didn’t exist. \u00a0We, the living, breathing creature\u00a0that is made up of human beings, with a nervous system constructed\u00a0out of wire and TCP\/IP, must surely be in our adulthood now, right?<\/p>\n
I don’t think so. \u00a0The Internet is amazing, sure, but we still obsessed with boobs and cat videos. \u00a0If I was to place an age on us, I would say we’re in our early teens at the oldest.<\/p>\n
Internet porn is not the only evidence. \u00a0Look at the way we interact with each other. \u00a0Look at the comments on YouTube videos.<\/p>\n
“But Brian,” you say, “That’s YouTube. \u00a0Of course the comments there are going to be immature. \u00a0The target audience of YouTube is a younger crowd.”<\/p>\n
Okay, then look at the comments on political news articles. \u00a0Or, if you want to retain faith in humanity, DON’T look at those comments. \u00a0What you’ll find there is close-minded, bigoted, hateful name calling and vitriol. \u00a0That’s from both the right and the left.<\/p>\n
Interconnected humanity is not a terrible creature. \u00a0We are just young. \u00a0We haven’t learned to play well with each other. \u00a0Like children, we’re prone to hyperbole and tantrums. \u00a0Like children, we reduce complex issues into black and white, right or wrong, binary thinking. \u00a0We can be sweet, but we’re often self-absorbed, lacking the maturity required to be consistently considerate.<\/p>\n
We are learning. \u00a0We are discovering that we have strength, and can change the world when we focus. \u00a0We have inclinations towards addressing social issues, though we may not always agree on how to talk about those issues, or how to solve the problems. \u00a0Though we still have more work to do, we should be amazed at\u00a0we’ve managed to do\u00a0already. \u00a0We’re slowly but surely getting better at accepting each other’s differences.<\/p>\n
We still have a ways to go, but I’m hopeful. \u00a0I look at us and I believe we will get better. \u00a0We will mature. \u00a0And what amazing things will we do then?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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