Be Careful About What You Choose to Believe
Many people place blind trust in the Internet. The fact is that we
should not be believing everything we read online. As an example, since
Wikipedia's birth, more than fifteen thousand contributors have created
nearly three million entries in over a hundred different languages-none
of them edited or vetted for accuracy. What's more shocking is that
Wikipedia has become the third most visited site for information and
current events; a more trusted source for news than the CNN or BBC
websites, despite the fact that wikipedia can be edited by anyone who
has access to the Internet. It is not compiled of articles from credited
scholars or news reporters or editors. The people that are aware of the
true nature of hypertext sites like Wikipedia, are still happy to accept
the information presented. I know, because I am one of these people!
(Keen, 4)
This suggests that the Internet revolution is creating culture of
laziness. People would rather use a site containing misinformation,
simply because its easy to access and it often appears at the top of a
google search. It would be futile to try and stop this occurring, but I
think its important to bring people's awareness to the true nature of
hypertext and the power it can have by making connections between
information sources. Hypertext means that people must be more cautious
about what they read, because essentially the nature of information has
changed drastically.
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