HW 2: Don't believe the hype!

The one aspect I found interesting from Kline’s and Burstein’s passage, “From Cave Painting to Wonkette” was that blogging will ultimately lead the human race to greater truths and speed up evolution because there are now more sources out there that aren’t presenting information from a biased place, since they have no corporate backing.

My response: False!

I strongly believe that blogging, along with anything else in technology or human advancement, has its draw backs, can be misused, and the chance that people will become too dependant on it.

Yes, there are more individuals out there without a corporate agenda, but they have an agenda nonetheless. Even if it’s just to get their word out there. That’s commendable. However, the problem is that opinions are being published, not truths; facts. The information you’re reading into may not be an out and out lie, to perhaps get you to buy something, but it’s still just one person’s opinion: skewed information, from a perhaps unknowledgeable source.

The part that scares me the most about this misinformation being put out there is the dependency people may have on it, especially teenagers. One random guy in Illinois with internet, and a knack for satirical writing will have thousands of kids eating up his every word, regardless if what he has to say is all angst-ridden, uneducated garbage.

Blogging and other forms of communicating via internet, could lead to great leaps in human knowledge, but only if the “right” information is put out there. As of now, with all the sources (individuals) out there, is just seems like a bigger mess than when “the media” was the main source of information.

I suppose my main problem with the whole idea of blogging is the lack of control, and faith in humanity to not simply “subscribe” their own opinions away. And who can’t relate to that?