What’s this heresy? Rob telling people to turn their backs on the web?! Well, maybe just for a little while, yes.

The web is an amazing media to broadcast yourself, to launch your business, to reap rewards of a financial and emotional kind. But it can also feel quite hollow at times, humbling in its size and dispiriting in its insincerity.

After a period when I found myself in front of the web for 18 hours per day for 6 days solid the other week, it made me want to shut it off and go and do something less boring instead. But that’s the point. The web is NOT boring. It’s astonishing. It’s deep and addictive and endless in terms of what you can do and gain and discover within it. And that got me thinking. Has it really answered all man’s answers? Does it really give us everything we need? Can we really live our lives now in front of a computer screen and never want for anything else?

For instance, how does the web compare to reading a book, or watching a television programme, or just going for a pint with mates? I thought I’d ask these and other questions, and see if I could find some answers….

The web means you’ll never need to read a book again.
Have you ever tried reading online? Impossible. eBooks? Give me a break. There’s something comforting to the eye about reading in print. Even on a PDA designed for ease on the eye, you’re darting all over the place. Bet you’ve skipped half of this article already because reading on screen is hard. And as for virtual page turning, pull the other one! Cheap gimmick. Give me a curled paperback or magazine any day.

The web is fountain of all knowledge.
True, but you need to go looking for it and learn what to believe and what to distrust. The problem is no one reviews what it is published online. Okay, Wikipedia reviews itself but who’s to say that what one administrator thinks might be completely different to what the very next one might think. I have read the most fantastically incorrect things in Wikipedia, from flight being first recorded in America to Robert Mugabe burning in hell when he dies (okay, not all false but, you get the picture.)

The web frees us
Does it? In many ways the web binds us and it binds us without us even noticing, which is the really worrying part. How? Search engines. Search engines are FAR more powerful that people give them credit for. Search engines are the sign posts to all knowledge. You want to find out about how to lay a brick wall, search on “how to lay a brick wall.” You want to know who to vote for in the next election, search on “who to vote on.” Suddenly, what we are told and what we act on is coming from the important sites according to search engines. From the insignificant (building a wall - unless is falls on you) to how to vote in an election, search engines are telling you what information to use. Just think about that for a minute.

The web helps us make friends
Maybe, but friends with who and on what level? Are our online friends really who they say they are? It’s proven that many people adopt online personas quite different from their worldly counterparts. Just play Second Life or an online communal game and you’ll see what I mean. People in every day life are NOT that bold or blatant or liberated. And are online friendships as deep and meaningful as our real life friendships. To some people yes, I am sure they are but to the majority of us I doubt it. I have, apparently, 100s of digital Best Friends in Facebook (I know, Billy no mates). But I know for a fact, my real life true friends I can count on one, okay maybe two, hands (at a push).

The web gives us it, when we want it
True. You want it, be it porn or music or videos general irreverent chatter, the web can give you it. You Tube is the most awesome creation ever. I can watch my old heroes of rock music and see them on stage and interview and never shove my hand in my pocket and pay for a DVD again. I can watch that thing I wanted to watch about the snakes eating bison whenever I want and not rely on being in front of the TV at 8pm on a Sunday. BUT, deny it or not, we are creatures of habit and whilst we might rejoice in being freed to get stuff when we desire it or think we want it, we NEED to shut off our brains and our busy schedules once in a while and let someone else take the strain and controls and give us what they think we want. That, in itself, is being truly free. Giving up our control over our media intake and say, “No, you entertain me. You take me where you want to take me.”

(Rob is currently overworked and, after a short break, will be back rejoicing in the web again soon.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.