Not All Bad
First published in the print column, The Nature of Things
Frequently I hear people—and by people, I mean people over the age of 40—making negative comments about the evils of the Internet and the detrimental societal ramifications of social media. But like anything else, we take the good with the bad, and truly, it isn’t all bad.
If there’s one good thing that’s come out of everybody and their brother posting pictures and videos and commentary on the world wide web, it’s that fewer of us are as dupable as perhaps we once were. Maybe it’s not quite fair to give all credit to the Internet for this wisening up that often masquerades as cynicism, but today’s average American holds a very different view of our nation—and the world—than the post World War II starry-eyed patriots of yore. Too much has happened since then, too many whistles have been blown, too much dirty laundry has been aired, too much corruption revealed and skulduggery exposed.
Despite the censorship that happens occasionally on certain social media platforms, the multitude of open forums has succeeded in providing people all around the world a common space to speak their truth. Well, maybe it’s not always the truth, but there’s a level of empowerment in having the freedom to express your opinion that we never experienced before the Internet came to be.
To think about this era as a blip on the timeline of humanity, one wonders where it all will lead. My kids’ generation has a completely different world view than those in my own age group. So much information unfurls daily, and plays out in real time right before our eyes in the form of news bytes, social media posts, video feeds, commentary threads and satirical memes. Granted, there can be a lot of drivel to sift through to find your nuggets of truth and bits of wisdom, but it is getting harder to fool people, I think. We know too much now, and if we aren’t sure, there’s a good chance we can find out in just a couple clicks.
On so many things now, we have the knowledge, the numbers are in, the experts have spoken, but there’s still so much which our leaders lack the political will to fix. It’s frustrating. But at the same time, it’s an exciting time to be alive, to see so many “common people” using their voices, their creative energies, their business models and their public influence to elicit change in the world. Never before has the opportunity to be a change-maker been so widely and equitably available to people. I find a great amount of hope in that knowledge. That we aren’t necessarily bound to the restrictions of our politicians’ ability to agree and to act; that grassroots movements are still wonderful and powerful vehicles for reform; and that taking the good with the bad, isn’t such a bad thing, after all.
