It's not all the Same

Is the Internet really meant to be all the same? I understand the argument that a person can feel that their privacy is invaded when companies target a person's interests when they go online, but the internet is an evolving, expansive thing that I think would start to "understand" what to look for when people search about different topics, locations, etc. If the Internet was just a static thing that was the same for everyone, I think it would be a bit boring for people to go on and not feel that the Internet has more to offer. Another large factor today is the amount of input people put on the internet in regards to social networking. I don’t feel people will be so one-sided in their thinking to not consider the various sides of political, economical, and social issues. Now, if people are lead a certain way when searching on these various engines for information on different topics, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find what a person is looking for at all. And, even people who we might considered like-minded individuals can feel the same way about an issue for different reasons that can raise the question how much a person knows about the thing they are supporting themselves. I feel there are no clear cut, straight forward issues that a person has a complete grasp on since people have their own unique take on things. The internet is an influential tool, but we can choose what to accept from this large bank of knowledge and keep for ourselves. Computers can be programmed to show things a certain way  for people nowadays, but we still have the reasoning and intelligence to find answers for ourselves.

The Internet Campaign

Obama's social network campaigning was one of the most innovative methods in politics. He was a little known Illinois Senator who used various social networks to raise awareness of the issues he was running on for President, he held fundraisers online, and got people to meet together in person to assemble and promote his campaign. His online presence allowed for thousands of people who otherwise might have not been involved in promoting any candidate in the 2008 election to take a large part in their town or city and play an integral role in their area. Another great move was how the information the Obama campaign was able to collect about those involved in their online campaign to meet in person to hold fundraising events or just to meet in person to come up with ways to promote Obama's campaign in their neighborhoods. This method of campaigning allowed for Obama to raise money, awareness and volunteers to help in his run for the presidency in 2008.

Generation Online

A New World exists today, and it’s called the Internet. This generation of kids has flocked to it in droves, especially to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Parents barely have the same computer savvy to keep up and this unknown world to them seems to hold nothing but trouble for their children. Social networking has its pros and cons, some that parents are aware of and some that are unique since the Internet allows people to act in ways they never would happen in person. For example, cyber-bullying and suicide assistance websites. The Internet can bring out the good or bad in kids. Parents are trying to find ways to protect their kids all the time. Especially with all the things they can access. Kids gain the ability to stay in touch with one another, have access to a huge amount of knowledge and other benefits. On the other hand, kids can become targeted by anonymous strangers, constant usage of the Internet has shown cases where kids become wrapped up in their online lives and disinterested in their offline lives and other actions which affect them negatively. Social networking seems almost like an oxymoron when some of these kids just get more "friends", like on Facebook, just to say they have a lot of them but don’t even know half of the people they share their personal lives with on a daily basis. All this networking seems to just take place online without any real person to person contact. The privacy of one's home is non-existent with kids chatting at school then at home constantly viewing each other via webcams, sending illicit pictures on occasion and a variety of things that most wouldn’t dare do except for having this feeling of safety that doing certain actions over the internet doesn’t come with consequences. Social networking is where kids hold conversations, meet new people, put out their thoughts, and many other things which are unique to this generation and will continue on to future kids. Now, I don’t think the internet needs to be restricted, but educating kids on certain etiquette to give them a better understanding that their online selves and offline selves shouldn’t be so different and to try to balance the two without having them come into conflict.