The internet and how we use it
Born in North London, Andrew was always very keen on his studies, for he earned a bachelor’s degree in history in the University of London. He later studied in the University of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia as well as earning a master’s degree in political science in the University of California, Berkeley. Keen has invested quite a bit of his time producing various books: The Cult of the Amateur, Digital Vertigo, and The Internet is Not the Answer. One of his popular opinions that he addresses in his books is that the internet is diminishing culture.
The problem with the internet is it’s making it increasingly difficult for artists to own a living because everyone is stealing. And because the internet is trivializing culture to such an extent that everyone is broadcasting, everyone is writing blogs, everyone is putting music on the web-
Keen mentions that the internet being so populated as is, ‘steals’ culture. He believes that so many of us nowadays torrents the latest movies, the latest songs, uses artists work and not one damn is given. We forget where these things come from and how much work was put into it and steal it. The internet takes away from producers, for its value decreases every download it gets. Art defines culture, and is losing its importance every day, because instead of it being so authentic, all of us can obtain it and it only takes us a couple of links. He proposes that we need responsible, professional journalists to collect and present original news to us rather than have biased amateurs who are paid by large corporations to do so.
Whenever we need help, what do we do? Do we go to the nearest library to search a book or do we just google it? Everything we need, is on the internet. The internet has made it so that we do not even have to move to get an answer. While certainly a joke, Keen’s tweet shown above has some truth behind it. We can get answers to our questions online, and no matter how convenient it is, we are forgetting the value of answering these questions ourselves, of creating art ourselves. Our art becomes based on other art, and all of sudden we’ve seen this before. Andrew Keen presents ideas we all fall victim of sooner or later. We dig so deeply into the internet to the point where we do not know where to get out. We all should come to the realization that the internet sugar coats a lot of things and we fail to see most of them.
