Sunday, March 31, 2013

Active Internet Approach and the Cause of Liberty

                There is a line of thought that, through the internet, the liberty of all people will be secured. At first look this may seem to be a crazy thought. People have had liberty and freedom before the invention of the internet so idea that something like a communication tool would lead to liberty. At its barest form, it is true that the internet is not the source of liberty. All you have to do is look at what the internet is usually used for to see that this is the case. The World Wide Web is dying in place of internet based apps that are more likely to be used for game applications and ways to share pictures of random things than it is a purveyor of liberty. So, the question that should be asked is how the internet, with all of the social and entertainment applications, can become the source of our liberty. It is much more accurate to say that the possibility of a more liberty centered democracy is possible through the way that we use the internet.
                With the invention of the internet, as with other new forms of mass media, it was heralded as one of the most important inventions ever. After being assigned a messianic role, there are always high expectations and, in a sense, the World Wide Web delivered. The capabilities are almost endless with our ability to share and disseminate information. However, it seemed that as more people got involved with the use of the internet, the more bogged down things become. Again, as in my last blog, the vision of Aldous Huxley’s, A Brave New World, but that is more an issue of how we have come to use internet rather than a commentary of the tool that the internet is.
There must be a system that works to promote the ideas of liberty and democracy. This is difficult because most tools available to us through the internet have adopted philosophies that are more akin to, as Clay Shirky states in his TED talk, to a feudal system than a democratic system. But, as is the case throughout history, as repressive regimes try to take hold there is always a movement that bucks tradition and tries to obtain more liberty. This movement for the internet is open source coding. Even though we have this ability through internet start the movement, we seem to lack the desire. Before we can even get to this open source coding, a change in the way we use the internet has to be addressed. I believe that a process called Inbox Zero can be used as an example of the best way to use the internet.
The idea behind Inbox Zero is that your time and attention are finite. It starts by looking at our email. We like to say that we are able to multitask and yet, if we are honest with ourselves, the result of us trying to multitask is less time spent on things that are actually important to us. We do not reach our potential because we are always worried about what is in our inbox. We are worried about what we have read but not processed. This makes it important to process our emails rather than just read them. Processing is more than checking our email. You go through the email and the result is always an action of some sort. It is an action based email process. This is a distinct change from the uses of the internet right now. Now, the internet is mostly used for consumption. Consumption of our time through the use of games and news feeds. Consumption of information through the use of social media.
 The issue is that we do not process what we consume. So we always have things stored in our “inbox” of internet consumption. The way that we process this information is largely through five processes. The options for this process are: delete, delegate, respond, defer, and do. They are all action based and would force us to start processing the information that we, as internet consumers, use in our day to day lives. Originally, this was meant to be separate actions based upon the type of email that was received and your needs but with internet consumption, it is actually a five step process.
The first option is to delete. If used through the lens of internet consumption, this would have an enormous impact on how we use the internet. This is because we spend so much of our time concentrating on so many things that we never get anything done. This is huge because, even though we are so worried about so many things, we still spend the most of our time on websites that are important to us. This indicates that we want to concentrate on those things but our worry keeps us from doing so. If we “delete” those things that actually are not important, the websites that we actually do not visit often, then our energies could be focused in a positive way on the things we actually care about.
The second step, delegate, is a little harder to fit into the auspice of internet consumption but I think that in this context it can refer to what we choose to associate with while using the internet. This is different from the delete option in that this would take place after we have decided a particular website is worth our time. It is a more refined way of processing the information. We look through and order the information from most important to least important.
The third step, respond, has to do with your initial response to the information you have received. This is the emotional response and, while most would say to disregard this step, it is vital that it not be skipped. This is because, before we can move on to any sort of real action, we must deal with our emotions. Otherwise, we will not be any different from the people who allow their emotions to guide them. For instance, this past week, the right to marry for homosexuals was being discussed in our Supreme Court. During that time, many of my friends on Facebook changed their profile pictures to a red equal sign. Now, while this is not a bad thing, I certainly encourage any form of self-expression, it brought up the idea of how effective this form of “activism” really is. It was an emotional response to a highly charged discussion that, really, did not result in any particular change. I would argue that this was important for my friends who support marriage equality but, if it stops there, they have not completed the process and have done nothing for the increase of liberty.
The fourth step, defer, has to do with the information that, in step two, was delegated as least important. This is information that will, eventually, need to be addressed, but, early on in the process, is not important. For instance, if my friends who support marriage equality were reading about how the proceedings were going, information on the history of gay rights, while important, is not as important as the new arguments being put forth.
The final step, do, is the idea that, if you can do it now, do it! This is important because, if we only consume information but do not act on this information, then it must be asked what good it has done us. Again, using my Facebook friends, it would have been important for them to figure out what were the most effective ways to get their opinions to the decisions makers who can actually affect policy. Maybe they could do this by formatting a group who could then start petitions that may affect policy.
Overall, this is a very active approach to internet consumption. The reason it is important for people to adopt this approach is that it is the first step in getting to where people can start using the internet and the open source approach to their internet experience. However, the current apathetic use of internet just will not cut it if, eventually we are to use the internet to secure and expand our liberty.


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