One of my\u00a0observations is that the Internet has not made us smarter, more reflective, more astute, or more of anything except apathetic and lazy about facts and data.\u00a0 Don\u2019t know why.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s because so much information is there, we\u2019ve become numbed to it all.<\/p>\n
Anyone over the age of 40 can remember a time before VCRs (those are the things that existed before DVDs).\u00a0 Likewise, there was a time when Cable TV meant having about 12 channels or so.\u00a0 Typically in those days, certain shows and specials came but once a year, and when they did, they brought great cheer!\u00a0 So the Wizard of Oz<\/em> was shown once a year, and when it was shown, it was an event.\u00a0 It was right up there with a birthday, or going to Cedar Point, or any other special event of the year.\u00a0 Same with holiday specials.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, A\u00a0Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas<\/em>, why the list is endless.\u00a0 These were events.\u00a0 They were special.\u00a0 They meant something.<\/p>\n But when Cable TV turned to an endless stream of channels able to show the same show a hundred times in a season, or you could see the same show a dozen times on a dozen different channels, things changed.\u00a0 When you could buy the Christmas special and watch it in June, or August, or March, or you could watch it fifty times before Christmas, it wasn\u2019t the same.\u00a0 Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt.\u00a0 And that is what happened with so many specials (which might be the appeal of \u2018Reality\u2019 TV, it is, after all, one season only and ever).\u00a0 <\/p>\n Perhaps the Internet has done the same.\u00a0 With so much information at Google\u2019s fingertips, it has lost its \u2018umph\u2019.\u00a0 It has lost its value.\u00a0 Of course there could be other reasons.\u00a0 For instance, with so many websites in the world, it\u2019s not hard to hunker down and become part of a rather small slice of the human experience while convinced you are right due to the number of others on that site with whom you agree.\u00a0 If you are convinced that the 9\/11 attacks were part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy, then you could spend your entire life surfing the sites dedicated to that rather small, extreme viewpoint, all the while convinced that the facts are overwhelming and that no doubt endless hordes of people see it your way. <\/p>\n Maybe there are other reasons.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m off by a mile.\u00a0 I just notice that there is a shocking lack of depth and perspective in the Internet world.\u00a0 One way this is manifested is that lack of distance we tend to run when it comes to looking back on things.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why, but for the Interenet generation, history seems to stop sometime around 1992.\u00a0 Certainly cultural and social history.\u00a0 <\/p>\n