According to a newspaper, and therefore it must be true, there are seven million people in this country that have never been online. This is seen by some as extraordinary and yet I'll bet that there are more than that who have never been abroad or even to London. I know that when I lived on the Isle of Wight, that there were people who had never been to the mainland and had no wish to do so.
For most of us the internet has become part of our everyday lives and we are in a sense addicted to it. Being online is being a part of a community and empowers us in so many ways. Oscar of course has no real concept of what it is all about and yet, he uses my iPad efficiently and has already grasped the fact that Youtube can feed his main addictions - diggers and dinosaurs. This is relatively harmless I suppose but social media that will suck in youngsters from an early age, represents a real threat to society at large.
I like to think that I am reasonably intelligent and that I am endowed with common sense and a fairly large streak of cynicism, (Yes really!) and I do use Facebook and have used other means of communication online. Facebook is a way of keeping in touch with people that we rarely or never see, but the more I see of it, the less appealing it becomes. I really am not interested in what people have for lunch and I do not particularly wish to look at a superabundance of really bad photographs. I am bored with sentimental images of domestic pets and other people's drinking exploits. Advice as to how to live my life or how to feel good, accompanied by twee images, invitations to share all sorts of garbage, and attempts to engender guilt are all part of the endless tsunami of garbage that is posted each and every day. Having said all that, I still look at it every day and participate in word games and even post rants from time to time.
It seems though that with younger users, social media is riddled with dangers. Children are easily influenced and peer pressure can incite youngsters to make errors of judgement that can have life changing consequences. We hear about online bullying of course, and of kids who post inappropriate images of themselves unaware of the use to which those images may be put. We hear of children being groomed by paedophiles who cleverly hide their real identities while preying on the vulnerability of the young. Many children are very cruel and can use these media to taunt and tease and even blackmail their peers, and I am sure that many lives have been ended as a result.
Online fraud is a growing industry and criminals (not just bankers) are finding more and more ways to access our money or to steal our identity. It is becoming harder and harder to remain anonymous and sooner or later it will be impossible to live outside of the world wide web, as we rely less and less on hard cash and pay all of our bills online.
Everything that we write or say online is recorded somewhere and can be held against us at some time in the future. I'd like to think that in this blog that I have freedom of speech, but I know that I don't. Many people are finding that expressions of opinion are no longer seen as innocent and careers are being wrecked because of a few ill advised words placed on Twitter. I am careful in my writing, that I do not name names even though my readership is minimal; this is after all more of a diary than anything else. It is sad though that freedom of expression is becoming eroded at such an alarming rate.
Those seven million people are probably quite fortunate and also I imagine probably quite elderly. As the years go by, their numbers will decline and fall.
For most of us the internet has become part of our everyday lives and we are in a sense addicted to it. Being online is being a part of a community and empowers us in so many ways. Oscar of course has no real concept of what it is all about and yet, he uses my iPad efficiently and has already grasped the fact that Youtube can feed his main addictions - diggers and dinosaurs. This is relatively harmless I suppose but social media that will suck in youngsters from an early age, represents a real threat to society at large.
I like to think that I am reasonably intelligent and that I am endowed with common sense and a fairly large streak of cynicism, (Yes really!) and I do use Facebook and have used other means of communication online. Facebook is a way of keeping in touch with people that we rarely or never see, but the more I see of it, the less appealing it becomes. I really am not interested in what people have for lunch and I do not particularly wish to look at a superabundance of really bad photographs. I am bored with sentimental images of domestic pets and other people's drinking exploits. Advice as to how to live my life or how to feel good, accompanied by twee images, invitations to share all sorts of garbage, and attempts to engender guilt are all part of the endless tsunami of garbage that is posted each and every day. Having said all that, I still look at it every day and participate in word games and even post rants from time to time.
It seems though that with younger users, social media is riddled with dangers. Children are easily influenced and peer pressure can incite youngsters to make errors of judgement that can have life changing consequences. We hear about online bullying of course, and of kids who post inappropriate images of themselves unaware of the use to which those images may be put. We hear of children being groomed by paedophiles who cleverly hide their real identities while preying on the vulnerability of the young. Many children are very cruel and can use these media to taunt and tease and even blackmail their peers, and I am sure that many lives have been ended as a result.
Online fraud is a growing industry and criminals (not just bankers) are finding more and more ways to access our money or to steal our identity. It is becoming harder and harder to remain anonymous and sooner or later it will be impossible to live outside of the world wide web, as we rely less and less on hard cash and pay all of our bills online.
Everything that we write or say online is recorded somewhere and can be held against us at some time in the future. I'd like to think that in this blog that I have freedom of speech, but I know that I don't. Many people are finding that expressions of opinion are no longer seen as innocent and careers are being wrecked because of a few ill advised words placed on Twitter. I am careful in my writing, that I do not name names even though my readership is minimal; this is after all more of a diary than anything else. It is sad though that freedom of expression is becoming eroded at such an alarming rate.
Those seven million people are probably quite fortunate and also I imagine probably quite elderly. As the years go by, their numbers will decline and fall.
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