So alright, here's the deal. The Internet is a bunch of hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo and I won't have anything to do with it. You wanna know why? I'll tell ya.
First off, let's talk about email. There's too much of it. This could have been a meeting. Moving on.
Second thing, boy have I got a lot to say about these Hot Singles In Your Area. Don't even get me started. Don't they know we're not supposed to leave our houses, what with everyone getting that Coronavirus? Please, all you Hot Singles In Your Area, stop tempting me or anyone else on all the websites, for the sake of all our health.
I guess if I had to say one nice thing about the Internet, it's that it allows us to keep talking to each other and crap when we need to stay inside. I mean, we could do that before with just phones. But you can't send political memes over the phone, you know? Grateful for my Facebook groups, even if everyone in 'em are all a bunch of idiots for the most part.
And I think it's also pretty cool that such an abundance of knowledge and human history is all accessible on the Internet. I don't really care to read any of it, but I guess some people do? I know all I need to know.
I think overall the Internet is a bunch of crap, but not all the time.
2/5
Points: 10
"The Internet is the great masterpiece of human civilization. As an artifact it challenges the pyramid, the aqueduct, the highway, the novel, the newspaper, the nation-state, the Magna Carta, Easter Island, Stonehenge, agriculture, the feature film, the automobile, the telephone, the telegraph, the television, the Chanel suit, the airplane, the pencil, the book, the printing press, the radio, the realist painting, the abstract painting, the Pill, the washing machine, the skyscraper, the elevator, and cooked meat. As an idea it rivals monotheism."
-Virginia Heffernan, Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art
“The Internet is a series of tubes.”
-Senator Ted Stevens
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They call us 'Digital Natives': people who were born into the hyperconnected Internet Age. For most of—if not our entire lives—the web has been deeply integrated in our day-to-day experiences. We shape our understanding of the world based on so much of the information we absorb from the Internet; how can we possibly separate ourselves from it long enough to assess the impact it has on who we are?
For this assignment, consider your own "personal perspective" of the web, and submit a brief written response. But instead of a traditional "mini-essay" format, craft your response in the form of a review of the Web. In class I asked you all to rate the Internet on a scale of 1 to 10. It's an absurd idea, but at the same time, it was the Internet that gave us the chance to review things like the Pacific Ocean (currently at a lukewarm 3.1/5 Stars on Google Maps). While this might be a satirical approach to a personal perspective of the web, I ask that you mix that satire with some serious, honest reflection about the Web.