As a web media student; I beg the question… How did people live their lives before the internet?

Simple tasks that me and you take for granted like checking the weather forecast, catching up with friends and making new ones were not always that simple.

People consumed media in a very different way than they do now. Before, to check the weather, you’d have to wait until the 6 or 10 o’clock news to find out the next few days. Nowadays it’s as simple as typing in “Weather” into Google and you’ll get lovely little graphic with the weather of your current location.

How simple is that! Even your nan could do that… I bet she doesn’t though. Am I Right?

Before social networking, people actually needed to go outside, walk to their friends and speak to them face to face. Nowadays, a Facebook message or ‘like’ is often the closest some people get to socially interacting with someone for a few days whilst they waste away playing endless hours of Minecraft.

The web in itself is changing. Not only from it’s users as more people connect to the internet. But also the way people use it. As user generated content (UGC) becomes a more and more important aspect of the web, it changes the way we collect and find information.

Wikipedia is seen as an ‘unreliable source’ as we’ve been told. When actually, it’s accurately in comparison to Encyclopedia’s is within 5%. So yeah… to the teachers who told you not to reference that great quote you found from Wikipedia, F**k you!. This just shows how UGC is changing not only the web, but the world we live in.

Take a look at this approach to pre-internet VS Internet, watch with caution.

What will everyone with a web access and the ability to create content on the web have on the future of the web?

-Tom.