Who rules the WWW?

The World Wide Web has grown dramatically, since it was established by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Today, the ‘uber network’ contains at least 18 billion pages, connects numerous networks around the globe and is populated by an estimated quarter of the earth’s population. In case we have not noticed before, it was last semester that most of us learned (from the BBC documentary Mr. Müller showed us) that the web reshaped, is reshaping and will continue to reshape all kinds of media and by that influences our perceptions, our attitudes and the way we think – that makes overall pretty much every aspect of human life being reshaped!

I do not intend to bore you with facts you already know. This blog post serves the purpose of taking a closer look on relevant facts and opinions on governance of our lovely, digital, parallel universe, in order to give a satisfying answer on the lead-question.

“BB” – Before Bruce…

BB, there was only little I knew about weblogs.

I came across a few & I soon developed a kind of aversion against them. The sound of the word ‘blog’ made me shiver. Not only, because to me it was a portmanteau of the sound-of-vomit and frog – but also, because I knew that ‘blog’ meant: bad poetry, blurry pictures and boring diary-tales.

Wedged me in WWW

Without doubt, I am not one of those people, who are upset about not living in some certain age (they consider being very cool). Most of the time, I am really happy to live today – I enjoy the comfort and convenience of modern times. I hardly leave home without my electronic equipment. If I feel like that, I am capable of killing quite some time online – chattering, reading, or watching. It kind of makes me wonder, how people used to meet up without cells or stay in touch over years without social networks…

But since anything this world is offering has at least two sides – from time to time today’s technologies appear to be more trouble than delight. I am not talking about our favorite playthings running out of battery, but the commitment we get ourselves in the second we’re buying a gear – or even worse; the dilemma we are getting forced into by others.

Maybe it’s just me (because I am an exceptionally lazy person with a strong desire for independence), but sometimes I find being connected to society, through the internet, to be such a pain! Just think about times you just want to be fucking left alone: No chance – turning off your cell or not updating some stupid status on the net is likely to make matters worse, as it will only make you look suspicious. The sole process of modern communication itself is actually pretty annoying: we’re typing words of little importance on some screen – instead of meeting up over a glass of wine or whatever and having profound, private conversations like back in the good old days… Seriously! Sometimes it takes ages to discuss regular stuff in a written conversation (especially using the casual contemporary chat), because of all the misunderstandings and delays occurring with typed and typing words.

So far my concerns regarded just the private, communicational use of the World Wide Web, how should I evaluate ‘professional’-networking then? (I admit that it is pretty hard being objective on that one – since I am not exactly writing this ‘post’ out of my own free will and indeed could imagine lots of way more pleasant things to do over the Easter holidays, than looking for some internet in the random sleepy village, I currently am staying in, for being able to fill the net with another redundant opinion!)

I guess it is practically the same, just a little more formal and complicated. When I think of those manager guys having countless important conversations with their business community using Skype and back to my friends, the internet and me – I believe that in comparison, the distance in language might not be that much of a problem, since these professional talks often (officially) occur in written form anyway; but the psychological bound – the omnipresence of work (analogically to the almost everywhere present internet) I believe to be an even bigger burden.

I mean it is hard enough to separate between work and play, when both are accessible over the same source, these days – but how come that by using the net we are more and more forced into it? Will we be consumed by some allegorical, spiderlike monster one day, or is there a way to avoid that threat somehow? How can we gain distance and independence, without hurting ourselves and still making use of this enormous platform and our relations?

I am not quite sure.