“I Saw It On The Internet!”

There are specific reasons we often take things we find online far too seriously.

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

It is all too common a phrase these days. Declared as it were an undefeatable trump card. There was a time when stating ones sources was only a part of the conversation, an offer to compare and examine information. Now we have entered a space in which existing online renders information immune to challenge or criticism. And attempting it reveals you as one of them.

One of the biggest conceptual benefits offered by a globally connected internet was the notion of universal access to information. On the surface it may seem like a utopian sort of idea. A virtual library filled with every book in the world to which everyone has a library card. It’s a lovely image and a somewhat truthful one but one which naively fails to account for the other side of universal access. The universal ability to contribute information.

I remember my professor in a ‘Psychology and the Internet’ course, which I took over twenty years ago, making a somewhat dismissive reference to the potential dangers. He sited the potential for the posting of large amounts of ‘garbage information’ but landed it with the punchline ‘however, we can all agree little ten year old Timmy’s page on astrophysics is probably not the most reliable source for verified scientific data’.