It’s alive!
I have always been careful with the internet, but not specifically BECAUSE of the internet. For me, it comes down to managing the same attention that is directed towards celebrities, teachers, official institutions… Basically any one individual, institution or media that TELLS you, and does not SHOW you.
Attention that leads to emulation. It seems that many people take stuff for granted on the internet. Accepts information as facts, and believes the expression “well-read” applies to someone who read alot ON THE INTERNET.
Maybe especially by the lower spectrum of the age bracket 1–100. That should be close enough.
What I mean to say by this is that I believe there is definitely a larger group of Active Internet Users in the younger population, than in the older one. And I also believe that there is a larger group of relatively Internet Noobies in the older generation, than in the younger one. And there is, possibly, a greater chance of getting lost and start getting confused about just about everything when you enter the Internet for the first time at an advanced age, as to when you grew up with it. And one can get confused about everything, because there is information relating to EVERYTHING. Of course, advanced age also gives an advantage in superiour intellect, which should be able to see through the sea of Commercialism, Individuality, Commercial-Individuals, Individual-Commercialist, Collectivist-Activists (who work from behind a screen and NEVER leaves it? How collective is that?), Active-Collectivists and Anti-Everything and Pro-Everything and Inbetweeners and Between-The-Tweeners and millions of more uniquely accented point of views, but sometimes it just does not see clearly.
Simple things, like how to use Torrents, recognizing a pop-up and knowing how to be specific when searching for anything specific. You got to be specific, otherwise it might send you to something completely random, that is, random in the sense that it was not you looking for IT. IT is always looking for viewers on the Internet, and you just happened to fall in the trap, face-first. And this is the amazing thing about it: The internet is not random. It is generated by all the users. It is the human AI, and not meaning Artificial Intelligence, but Alternate Intelligence. And it is human, because it is all created by the real, human users of the internet that is using this blank space to forge themselves in the shape they see fit, because that is what you do on the Internet. So there is always a reason, too. Even though it may not be reasonable, there is one. I can’t and won’t continue to try to describe why the internet is a crazy “place”, but I hope you all get my point.
I have mostly been pretty decisive when using the Internet, knowing what I want from it, and how to find it. It’s like cutting through the bullshit, but instead it’s clicking through thousands of pages and dodging a million ads, hidden and obvious ones, and be observant of any indicator of the source. Any kind of domain-name, perhaps even the creator or author of any text, the name of the page itself. Small things like that, you slowly learn to watch out for that, all at the same time. And then calculating in your head how propable it is that this page contains exactly what you need. Again, if you grow up with it or at least start using at a very young age, it’s easier. The Internet is a blank map, and you start nowhere. So, if you’ve been around the map, it's easier to avoid the shoals and jagged rocks. If you’ve never been there and start thrashing around, you might cut yourself.
