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One of the things claimed for this wonder-medium was that it would help educate the masses by delivering informative documentaries on a range of subjects. Yes, we were told, we'd all be far more aware and intelligent people as a result.

Well we all know how that was a load of rubbish. Skip forward 40 years and you can see that most hard-core TV viewers long for little more than another episode of Shortland Street or some awful reality programme.

Unfortunately, I fear that exactly the same thing is happening with the Net.

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The Net, we are being told, will give us all access to the largest repository of scientific, educational and other material ever made available to the public.

As a result of this, you'd expect us all to be getting smarter, wiser and better informed -- right?

Well if the stories on today's news wires are to be believed, that's far from the case.

First-up we're being warned that the new Karma Sutra worm is about to wreak havoc on the Net, like so many before it. Why haven't people learned not to open unsolicited attachments? Duh!

Next we're told that a consortium representing newspaper publishers is all pee'd off at Google who, they claim, is getting a free ride on the back of their hard work.

These publishers claim that their content is being "exploited" by Google for commercial gain, and that isn't fair.

Well I'm sorry guys -- just take some steroids and man the hell up!

Talk about deja vu. I remember facing exactly this same complaint almost a decade ago when I set up 7am News. At the time, some newspapers even threatened to sue me for aggregating headlines and linking to their stories.

Why haven't these people learned that there's far more to gain from such a symbiosis than there is to lose from it?

It strikes me that the Net is doing nothing to increase the IQ or sensibilities of those who use it. Looks as if the Net is about as mind-enhancing as TV.

Do you feel smarter?

Just in...
And, in breaking news -- Telecom says that it has surpassed its target of having 250,000 domestic broadband connections by the end of 2005. Good for them -- it's just a shame that a good deal of those connections are probably 20th-century broadband (ie: 256Kbps with a 1GB cap) and not the *real* levels of speed and capacity that we expect as we speed into the new decade.

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

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