Author: Laura Huang

    The article “Long Live the Web” describes some normal standards and principles through the evolvement of the Web, as well as the threatens the Internet is facing, ruining these fundamental principles. One of the principles is the universality or decentralization which enable the information to convey and exchange without the boundary of space and time. It enables people to access any link (URL) freely without royalties. Other standards, such as net neutrality and no snooping, all guarantee a safe and open Internet environment.

    However, in contemporary time, the Internet is gradually fragmented into “small kingdoms” which are isolated from each other. Companies create their own independent system to enclose the profit, technology, and communication. For instance, Apple’s iTunes system and their own apps block the information from each other, which may hold back the diversity and creativity of the market. For individuals, the theory of “Information Cocoons” raise by Tocqueville, a 19th-century French political scientist, may conclude the present situation to some extent. The “Information Cocoons” illustrates that in the dissemination of information, the public only pays attention to the things they are willing to learn and the information that may please them. Gradually, they will be constrained in the cocoon. The threats that the Web is facing increases this phenomenon as people are deprived of their liberty and right to access the new information. On the other side, the Internet world can’t operate smoothly without regulations or consensus. The interference of government should be appropriate so that it won’t affect individual privacy or the Web universality and can contribute to healthy development of the Internet.

    In the article “A Network of Fragments” written by Ingrid Burrington, the author demonstrates that the physical fiber, one of the most important parts among the infrastructural fragments of the network is transferring and delivering information every moment but is often neglected by people. Just like the complex American railway system that involves countless links and road marks, the Internet is a similar system and the fibers are the small signifiers that are connected with us implicitly. The author quotes from an article called “See the moon?” to expresses that the fragments and small components are the basis of the entire network system.

    The fiction story “The Machine Stops” presents a future society where people live under the control of the machine and can only communicate through the machine. The machine almost become a religious leader in the virtual world that it creates and people lost themselves in the machine’s time. When the machine breaks down, human society collapses easily because every individual is isolated and alienated. Only at this time did people realize that the worship of the machine will finally destroy themselves.

    Although the story seems extreme and horrible, it has some realistic significance which shows the potential outcomes of the machine-oriented society. In modern society, we can hardly live without machines or electronic devices. Our computers that connected with the internet becomes our “eyes” to see the views, our “ears” to hear the sounds or even our “brain” to think and operate. All the electronic devices deprive human of our senses and autonomous thoughts. The communication and connection between people are so dependent on these devices that we become addicted to them and neglect the foundation as a human being, for example, the way we communicate face to face or the right to control our will and consciousness. Just like Vashti thought in the story “the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people — an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes”. When people believe whatever the machine shows to them, they will lose the ability to feel the real and subtle emotion or experience the natural world. The inner spirit of an individual and people’s fundamental rights are eliminated. The internet and the big data in modern society try to isolate us from the natural world or our inner selves by presenting limited information and affecting our decision. If we are not alert to the disadvantages when using and developing the machine and technology, they may ultimately destroy us.