Eden Richman Week 4 - The Internet is A Super Cool Place
I always hear people talking about how bad the internet is for people. Social media hurts people and makes them feel bad about themselves, little kids can access inappropriate things, and fake news pops up everywhere you look. While all these things are true, there are still good aspects to the world wide web. I am going to point some out, and encourage everyone to try to find more positive things that they can get out of the internet - because it is not going away any time soon.
My favorite use of the internet is learning new things. My favorite place is educational youtube videos. For an internet skeptic, this could seem like an easy way to get sucked into misinformation. A good way to know if youtube videos are for real is to start watching lectures. You would be surprised how many universities post free lectures on youtube. One type of video I like to watch is just a teacher in front of a board, where you can also hear the students in the background if they ask questions. This type of video is definitely not fake information (Eddie Woo teaching Survivorship Bias, one of the first videos that got me into the educational youtube world) Another one of my favorite types of videos are the ones with random but interesting titles (Like YouTuber Vsauce talking about the Cognitive Tradeoff Hypothesis). Chances are that someone trying to spread fake news wouldn't really care about the really good short-term memory of monkeys. Once I know that a YouTube channel is reliable I can watch more from them and learn more. I don't know if any of you remember, but last year I fixed my own phone screen from a youtube video, and that got me a job offer at ubreakifix! (which didn't actually turn into a job, but it was still exciting.) The things you learn on youtube don't even have to be academic. I was bored one night last week and felt like doing something fun, so I put up a beginner's ballet class on my TV from youtube and learned some ballet. I also found some really good stretching and yoga videos to help me wind down after a long day.
Another thing I love about the internet is how you can connect with people. I am not too much of a fan of social media because I am one of those people who can be on TikTok for an hour straight (and it does not feel good). But believe it or not social media can be used for good. People post about lost dogs on Twitter and find them soon after. Facebook groups can help you connect with other people that have things in common with you. My personal favorite is ancestry.com where you can find long-lost relatives.
The internet isn't a bad place, the way we are using it is. If we think of the internet as a separate world that we live in, we can get sucked into it and not know reality from the online world. We have to think of the internet as a tool that is there to help us (because it is) we have to live in the real world, with our electronic devices only as tools that we control. What are your favorite ways to use the internet?
Wow Eden, I enjoyed reading about how you use the Internet to learn new things. The Internet has given us the power to learn about anything, which can empower people to do great things. For example, a self-taught programmer and high school student built the world's largest COVID-19 tracking site, used by millions of people each day. How did he do it? Google. YouTube. Reddit. I also liked how you mentioned the Internet is a tool. I agree with that, because now we are able to do more things that would have required a PhD and years of experience to access and understand certain information.
ReplyDeleteHi Eden. I love this way of thinking about the internet to use it for good rather than bad. My personal favorite use of the internet is to watch different shows and movie from various streaming devices, but also go on my favorite website Pinterest and just look at pretty pictures for hours on end. I think sometimes social media can give the internet a bad rep, but overall I think it's pretty cool!
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