If you wanted to know the answer to a question like "what is the origin of the dildo?" fifty years ago, it would take some serious determination, not to mention a pretty thick layer of skin. You'd have to go to the library, pull out the encyclopedia, and sit there for a while as you sifted through peripheral information, until finally you read a two hundred word blurb that didn't exactly go as in depth as you were hoping. Maybe you wouldn't find anything at all, and God knows you wouldn't go around asking people.
Today, it would take you about three and a half seconds to pull up this information. Simple. You grab your phone, google "dildo origins" and right there is the Wikipedia entry for the 'Dildo'. Not only would you get a detailed write-up on the historical background, cultural significance, and controversies surrounding dildos, you would also get links to important related concepts and names associated with the term. If you weren't happy with what you found, you could always check one of the other 300 000 results that google populated for you. And best of all, no one would ever have to know that you even looked it up.
I don't know anything about dildos. Or, I didn't before I started writing this entry. I might not be an expert yet, but even the silly example I used above has resulted in more knowledge on the subject than I had before.
This is the beauty of the Internet.
This is the beauty of the Internet.
To go back to the analogy, in the time it would have taken me to find that one paragraph about dildos in 1960, today I could be fully versed in the topic in half that. The internet has freed us from devoting a lifetime of study to an idle curiosity. Now we can devote our lives to many idle curiosities.
The curmudgeons of generations past would have looked at this scenario and scoffed. They would argue that it's not about the answer to the question, it's about the journey you take to get there. For them, what's important is the sifting through that peripheral information; the excitement you had on your way to the library.
But what they fail to realize is that the journey doesn't begin when you ask the question, it begins when you find the answer. The internet begins this journey. If a friend and I were having a disagreement on an issue based on statistics, there is an easy answer: check the internet. Were there more deaths in boxing or MMA last year? Turns out it was boxing. But regardless of whether myself or my friend was right, the discussion doesn't end, it just changes course. We can start looking at all the data surrounding the issue. We can question the legitimacy of the findings. We can learn how these deaths were caused. The point is, we come away with a better understanding of the topic and we generate new ideas, all in a few minutes.
The internet has given us limitless freedom to learn about any topic we could ever imagine. It has given a voice to the niche markets; the counter-culture; the fetishists. It's curiosity's best friend. It's one big giant support group: comforting proof that no matter who you are, there is someone out there just like you; no matter what the question, an answer exists. This type of freedom didn't exist before the internet.
Perhaps the best indicator of the power of the world wide web can be found in this blog. It gives me the chance to voice my thoughts (even if no one's reading...can't help that!) and anyone who wants to be a part of that discussion only has to read or post a comment. If even one person reads this post and reflects on it, whether they agree, disagree, or fall somewhere in between, then the internet is already a success: it has facilitated intellectual growth where they may have been none before. And next time someone google's 'dildo origins', this very blog entry will be firmly entrenched among the other three hundred thousand sites dedicated to the subject. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.
Coming soon: Why The Internet Sucks
