So I recently started classes again, and my American Military History (it's like the "Here's the stuff you actually care about" history class) professor, who's probably around 65, made mention to his ineptitude when it comes to technology, but realizes that it is a great thing that is shaping the world unlike many other people his age and younger. It was this thought and realizing how some teachers and professors that I've had throughout my schooling have required at least a certain number of printed sources on a given paper or assignment that made me think about how much of a game changer this generation is. And we haven't quite seen, in my opinion, such a radical worldwide change like this since the Great Enlightenment. Allow me to explain.
Up until about about the 14th century, most people were absolute morons. Now one can argue that we haven't much changed in that respect, let me establish that even your narrow-minded shut-in biggots would marvel at the ignorance of your Dark Age peasants. Then a few inventions and a couple of less moronic people came along and with the historical equivalent of a poof, and people started reading. And unlike today, subsequent to that reading came thoughts (thoughts other than "OMG Edward/Jacob/any other vapid character!"). People started challenging the people who read to them and analyzed what they read. The thing is, they only had what was made available for them to read, so very few texts and thoughts from around the world got to them.
Now it's not like the written word didn't move around in the last 500 years because it definitely did. But it was expensive to and took a long time to move a book from one far off place to another, and often times when copies were made, translations changed things. But the globalization of the internet changed all that, because not only has it allowed for the transport of texts of a relative few people, but it's a platform for everyone to use should they wish. No longer did we have to watch CNN and Fox and try to figure out what was bias and what was fact, we get can get it straight from the source. A great (and soon to be cliche) example is the riots the resulted from the election in Iran. The Iranian government basically cut off all media from reporting what was actually happening and forcing them to report what they wanted the outside world to hear. Normally, this would have been an effective way of keeping up appearances, but Twitter went and screwed that plan up. Because of it's ease of use and SMS integration, it was impossible for the angry Tweets to be stopped. The message of the rioters was able to spread despite a full government's best efforts.
The internet used to have this notorious reputation for being a cesspool of misinformation, but that has changed as society has embraced it as a relevant and amazing alternative to older methods of spreading both new and old information. Thanks to the work of Google, many rare and otherwise unobtainable texts are easily read through. And people are challenging what was otherwise assumed to be common knowledge. It made me realize that professors who demand printed sources are of archaic mindsets, and while the reluctance or all out refusal of the previous generations to accept new ideas is far from new, it's incredibly sad to see, considering these same people could easily Google their actions and see how it effects the progress we have the potential to make (or Bing "How to not live like a jackass)
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