‘…interactions on the WWW begin to look like a danger looming on the horizon, a danger to the development of humans and human society.’
FROM the time the World Wide Web (WWW) was “invented” in the late 1980s, life has never been the same again. Well, the same is true from the time the Telegram was invented, or the telephone was invented, or radio and TV were invented, or the computer was invented.
But the WWW – first intended to be a network to allow scientists in universities to connect and exchange information and ideas – has changed life far more impactfully and in a far shorter period of time than any of the intentions mentioned above. And the change and impact are both equally great and scary, with implications so deep and consequences still to be discovered that society (and human nature?) is being shaken to the core.
Humans have been inventing things since they emerged from the caves. From harnessing the power of fire, to making stone tools, to inventing the wheel and so on, the impact of each invention has always been greater.
That’s why the impact of TV was awesome. It allowed people in disparate areas around the world to watch the same show (perhaps dubbed in a different language) and witness historical moments like the moon landing in 1969 under the Apollo space program and the launch of the Space Shuttle program. They also got to witness grand celebrations (a Queen’s jubilee, a beauty pageant, Diana’s funeral) as well as human and natural disasters.
But TV was a “push” medium, and was basically a one-way mode of interaction. The telephone, and later the mobile phone and the desktop and the laptop, were more than awesome. They had a revolutionary impact on human society because people could now interact with each other, instantly, wherever they were in the world, and however few or many they were.
It was empowering because information was now at one’s fingertips. It was getting more difficult for the government and institutions (like the. Catholic Church) to ban books and block sources of information so that people could not learn more.
Fast forward to the 21st Century and today we face the gigantic potential that the WWW presents, together with the gigantic dangers it poses. With the development of algorithms humans are, in a way, provided a way out from drowning in a sea of information (information, not facts and not truth!). But at the same time, they are unknowingly moved from a web of networks into cocoons of interests which could be dangerous to the development of the human mind and human society.
When we only see and hear information that is an affirmation of our biases and fears, then these biases and fears become so embedded in us that nothing contrarian can change our minds. But information is not the same as facts, and facts do not always equal the truth in our minds. We know that information is not the truth because outside of the cocoon we get exposed to contrarian information; inside our cocoon, we only hear or see the same. And so over time, the information we get in our cocoon becomes fact and fact becomes truth.
And that’s where it becomes obvious that the rise of the cocoons as a result of algorithms intended to “ease” interactions on the WWW begin to look like a danger looming on the horizon, a danger to the development of humans and human society.
We are being cocooned, and we should worry about it.
