"Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch" General Q&A discussion

In Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch, the growth of the internet is causing havoc at The Daily Business Chronicle. But the internet is also transforming the way most individuals interact and connect--or in some cases re-connect--with others. Is the internet changing life for better or worse?

I think major changes are always perceived as "worse" during the transition period, and it certainly seemed that way for Russell and The Daily Business Chronicle. These monumental changes necessarily result in casualties (The old lamp lighter, the Western Union boy, etc) but in the long run life-altering innovations keep us on our toes and force us to adapt. The trauma of change is present for all of us to one degree or another.

Finding fault is the easiest thing in the world to do, so it's easy to point to negative aspects of the Internet. Overall, though, it's a huge benefit, and there's no doubt--at least for me--that the good far outweighs the bad. I'd never want to go back to living without it.

Years ago, I showed my mother-in-law the good and bad about the Internet. This conservative and very religious woman giggled (she´s good at giggling) when I showed her a porn site, and then spent the next few hours surfing and reading information about her home town in Poland (and in Polish, too). I had a hard time getting her away from the computer!

Good and bad, yes, but I love it.

Robert, William and Sheryl -- interesting comments! The internet is creating wrenching change in many areas and certainly delivering more benefits, more aids to productivity and more distractions to individuals. It's also changing the real world and how we interact with each other. Bookstores and record stores are disappearing, which changes the community experience. Newspapers are shutting down (and TV is being viewed differently), which alters our ability to conduct either a national conversation based on shared information or a water cooler conversation about the show everyone's watching. Forty years ago, the number of daily newspapers delivered was one per household. Today it's 0.4. Meanwhile, research shows that our brains are getting altered by the internet, and that kids who spend time on screen-based devices now report being bored faster than the kids of previous generations. At the same time, we can be connected to hundreds of past and present friends, family members, colleagues and acquaintances online. We can absorb more, share more, enjoy more than ever. But it's also quite common to see people out in public who are giving more attention to their smart phones and Blackberries than the people they are allegedly spending time with. Are we getting overloaded and overstimulated? Are we selecting our own news to the degree that we end up less well-informed? And because we can connect to like-minded people around the world at any time day or night, are we losing real-world social skills and a sense of local community?

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has just been named Time's Person of the Year. The story will no doubt look at the many ways Facebook--which passed the 500-million member mark this year--is changing the way people interact and relate.