It’s easy to take for granted how ingrained the internet has become in the modern world. However, looking back even twenty years can reveal the full scope of this change. When you think about what online spaces allow, you’re inevitably going to turn your attention to the leisure activities that you use it for – scrolling, watching videos, online gaming. These are important to consider when thinking about the overall landscape, but it can risk leaving you thinking about the internet too rigidly. It’s not just a form of entertainment; it’s something that has a very profound impact on society.
Discourse Without Accountability
The way people interact with each other has been one of the most noticeable ways that the internet has had an impact on the world. Online spaces matter because this is the primary way that people communicate with each other—either through forums, social media, or messaging apps. However, much of the time there’s no direct accountability for saying whatever you want, meaning that discourse has become more polarized and aggressive, pushing people into more extreme positions that neglect more humanistic factors like empathy and understanding.
That’s not to say that this is a problem entirely unique to the online ecosystem—there were violent and extreme political groups long before that—but a conversation online doesn’t require the participants to stick around long enough to feel the consequences of what they say. Someone can say something hateful or provocative and then disengage, simply watching the replies. In a real discussion, saying something unacceptable would mean being held accountable by everyone around you, and you would be easily identifiable as the one who made the remark.
The Risk of Misinformation
For a lot of people, the presence of misinformation is one of the biggest concerns about the modern online world. It isn’t just the fact that there’s so much of it or that it’s so easy to spread, it’s that so many people believe it over factual and reputable sources. It’s a problem that can be incredibly difficult to solve, as once information (right or wrong) is out in the world, it can then be difficult to correct people’s understanding of a situation.
So many people use online spaces like social media platforms, where this kind of content proliferates, that this is a problem which can’t be ignored. If you accept that online spaces are going to continue to be as prominent as they currently are, and that this is just the direction of society, then steps need to be taken in order to make misinformation more obvious. Many outlets operate fact-checkers, but when doubts are raised about the reliability of these outlets in the first place, different people just flock to their own echo-chambers to validate what they want to hear.
Dominance of Online Entertainment
When it comes to online entertainment, this is also an area which seems to be attracting more attention than ever before. The shift away from terrestrial TV to streaming services showcases this well enough, but social media video platforms like TikTok are also enough entertainment for many people. Online gaming is also something that’s more popular than ever thanks to platforms like Twitch that can popularize it further. Even people who aren’t interested in gaming might find themselves exploring what the medium is all about just through playing the leading online slots in Canada. While they might start this as an accessible version of a game they know through the physical world, it might be by playing these slots that they then explore other types of online game.
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