The modern Web came into existence as a tool of enlightenment, a way for researchers to share knowledge and discoveries more freely with others. This first chapter of its evolution was prefaced upon the idea that information was free and that the digital world was a place to learn and discover. Yet this utopia was quickly usurped by the cyber world’s limitless commercial potential and today has devolved into an entertainment wonderland focused on commercial monetization and manipulation. Could the key to the Web’s salvation lie in a return to enlightenment?
Today’s Web looks little like the Web of yesteryear.
Setting aside its graphical and interactive emphasis, today’s Web focuses on entertainment and consumerism, from social media to streaming movies to shopping sites.
The Web has become a place to escape the physical world to be entertained rather than a place that expands our horizons towards learning new things.
Today’s Web gifts us access to all the world’s information at our fingertips. We can read news from the other side of the globe or learn about what life is like across the planet. A Google search is all that’s needed to see the world. Yet instead of embracing our newfound digital transport, we remain at home, searching about the same places we always have.
Despite the entire world at our fingertips, we have little interest in expanding our horizons. We are no more likely to seek out new information than we were before. All that technology that connects us has been in vain.
Instead, we are interested only in entertainment.
Rather than spend hours reading news from other countries and learning about new cultures or languages or reading about history or brushing up on our math skills or taking up a new humanities or arts interest, we would far rather spend the evening glued to our phone watching cat videos.
The Web is far from alone in this devolution. Every communications technology undergoes such a transition from enlightenment to entertainment.
As radio evolved, its detractors lamented its shift from informing to entertaining. As television matured, the FCC warned of the social impacts of its transition towards mindless entertainment that had no societal value.
In the same fashion, the Web has migrated from its early focus on knowledge to similarly emphasize mindless fun. We rarely turn to Twitter or Facebook to learn about the world. We turn to them to catch up with friends and family and to pass the time. Our smartphones that can access the world are used to play games and post snarky comments.
Even our personal information production is oriented towards entertainment rather than expanding our understanding. We obsess over social shares and viral fame rather than engage in thoughtful dialog that advances society.
Could it be that this shift towards entertainment is what lies at the root of the Web’s devolution into toxicity?
The pursuit of scholarly knowledge can involve considerable disagreement and disputes. Yet these are resolved through research, citations and clinical discourse, not name-calling, hateful slurs and death threats screamed in public. The focus is on thoughtful debate that advances the field rather than viral fame that entertains others. In short, disagreement is an obstacle to be overcome in the pursuit of something greater, rather than an outcome to be encouraged in its own right for the sake of entertaining others.
What if the Web was more like scholarship?
Putting this all together, could the Web’s troubles lie in the devolution of its focus from enlightenment to entertainment, much as happened to each of the mediums that preceded it? What if the Web were more like scholarly discourse, focused on bettering ourselves with education and expanded horizons than escapism and entertainment? If we were focused to speak only in clinical discourse, cite each of our claims and refrain from emotional speech, could we reform social media into a tool once again for education and enlightenment? Or is the Web’s destiny to be forever an entertainment medium? Could it be that the Web will naturally reinvent itself in the next technological revolution, much as radio reinvented itself in the Web era as the podcast and reasserted its educational roots?
In the end, will the future of the Web lie in a return to its past?
