Thoughts on "You" as Time's Person of the Year
Time Magazine has selected "you" as Person of the Year for the unprecedented expansion of user-generated content on the Internet. The criterion for proclaiming the Person of the Year is "the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news". The magazine has stressed that it is neither an honor nor an award, but more of a statement. Hence, the choice of "you/us" as Person(s) of the Year encourages not so much any lust to pat oneself on the back as it should a moment of contemplation on how much the world has changed in so short a time and what it has in store for us.
It is undeniable that technology, particularly the Internet, has allowed all of us with the opportunity for and ease of information access and transmission. This perhaps summarizes almost all of the benefits that we are enjoying from the Net. Wikipedia delves on just about any topic and is accessible to anyone online. Youtube allows us to post our own videos for the world to see. MySpace and Facebook (and Friendster in the Philippines lol) gives us the opportunity to network with other people regardless of whether they live next door or at the other side of the world.
In fact, Time (in the same 12/25/06 - 01/01/07 article) states that users watch 100 million videos a day in Youtube. MySpace reportedly has 230,000 new registrations a day. Wikipedia has about 1.5 million English articles.
The choice of Time is both a confirmation and emphasis that, as Thomas Friedman put it, "the world has become flat". "Flat world" is a metaphor to describe the leveled playing field, in a global scale, that is empowering the common individual more than ever before. In a flat world, power and influence are more decentralized from a select few to a diverse multitude. It does not matter who you are or where you're from. In a flat world, the critical factors are minds and methods - what you think, what you can do, and how you can do them.
In this kind of world, people can foster an environment where knowledge is continuously spread out across places and cultures, in such a way that innovation becomes ubiquitous. The online community can wield its influence on local and global policies. It can at least make its presence felt against administrations. A word of caution on this: with such power comes the reponsibility of educating and informing oneself to make reasoned arguments. (Statistics show that the Internet/online community, particularly the young voters, in the US is partly responsible for the Democrat victories this recent mid-term elections. Young voter turnout surged compared to past elections and most of the youth voted Democrat.)
To my judgment, majority of the online community is acting fairly responsibly. At least in my own experience, Wikipedia proves reliable most of the time. In some of my research and casual readings, I have verified Wikipedia articles' content with actual books and more reliable websites. On certain occasions, inconsistencies are mentioned on the page itself. Other times, you'd see that a page has been edited to the point of being "bull". As a rule I have learned back in college, I do not trust the site as a primary source of content. But I still refer to it for easier understanding of complex topics. The exchanges I read in Blogs (and even in other sites like forums and Youtube) show that the Internet is a wide avenue for free expression. Posts range from personal attacks to informed statements. I hope we could move further towards the latter end of the spectrum.
To this end, such people who use the power responsibly deserve more than a mere feature as Time Person of the Year. That collective "you" deserves honor and praise. Ideas can be healthily and openly exchanged, cultures can be bridged, and the world can be healed if we have more of that kind of "you".
It is undeniable that technology, particularly the Internet, has allowed all of us with the opportunity for and ease of information access and transmission. This perhaps summarizes almost all of the benefits that we are enjoying from the Net. Wikipedia delves on just about any topic and is accessible to anyone online. Youtube allows us to post our own videos for the world to see. MySpace and Facebook (and Friendster in the Philippines lol) gives us the opportunity to network with other people regardless of whether they live next door or at the other side of the world.
In fact, Time (in the same 12/25/06 - 01/01/07 article) states that users watch 100 million videos a day in Youtube. MySpace reportedly has 230,000 new registrations a day. Wikipedia has about 1.5 million English articles.
The choice of Time is both a confirmation and emphasis that, as Thomas Friedman put it, "the world has become flat". "Flat world" is a metaphor to describe the leveled playing field, in a global scale, that is empowering the common individual more than ever before. In a flat world, power and influence are more decentralized from a select few to a diverse multitude. It does not matter who you are or where you're from. In a flat world, the critical factors are minds and methods - what you think, what you can do, and how you can do them.
In this kind of world, people can foster an environment where knowledge is continuously spread out across places and cultures, in such a way that innovation becomes ubiquitous. The online community can wield its influence on local and global policies. It can at least make its presence felt against administrations. A word of caution on this: with such power comes the reponsibility of educating and informing oneself to make reasoned arguments. (Statistics show that the Internet/online community, particularly the young voters, in the US is partly responsible for the Democrat victories this recent mid-term elections. Young voter turnout surged compared to past elections and most of the youth voted Democrat.)
To my judgment, majority of the online community is acting fairly responsibly. At least in my own experience, Wikipedia proves reliable most of the time. In some of my research and casual readings, I have verified Wikipedia articles' content with actual books and more reliable websites. On certain occasions, inconsistencies are mentioned on the page itself. Other times, you'd see that a page has been edited to the point of being "bull". As a rule I have learned back in college, I do not trust the site as a primary source of content. But I still refer to it for easier understanding of complex topics. The exchanges I read in Blogs (and even in other sites like forums and Youtube) show that the Internet is a wide avenue for free expression. Posts range from personal attacks to informed statements. I hope we could move further towards the latter end of the spectrum.
To this end, such people who use the power responsibly deserve more than a mere feature as Time Person of the Year. That collective "you" deserves honor and praise. Ideas can be healthily and openly exchanged, cultures can be bridged, and the world can be healed if we have more of that kind of "you".
posted by Rom
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