June 2008. 84 William Street, New York, New York. I’m standing in front of a dorm room mirror, unable to quite figure it out. Is that the right loop? Which way do I put it through? No, that’s not quite it. Oh boy. This can’t be that hard? Well apparently, it is.
Now I’m stressed. I have to be in court at 930 AM, to watch the supervising attorney at my summer internship participate in a court hearing, and “business casual” just isn’t going to cut it in court. After about three to four minutes of this restless internal monologue, I pause, with a sketchy solution in mind. What if I look it up on Google? I fire up my laptop. “How to tie a tie.” A few explanations appear. But, come on. Show me, don’t tell me!
YouTube it is. After opening three or four more videos, I find the one that will greatly simplify my life, forever. Try it once. Hmm, that’s not it.. Two more times, and then another. Better and better. And, before I knew it, I was tying a tie. Success! This wouldn’t have been possible without YouTube.
As I examine my own experiences, and observe the world around us, I can’t help but marvel at how much good the Internet has brought to our lives. I believe it’s important that we take stock how the Web has transformed significant parts of our existence, so that we may continue to grow, expand and improve what the Internet has to offer.
YouTube: To be sure, YouTube is saturated with content that is of limited practical value, ranging from cat videos to ridiculous daredevil stunts to useless political rants. I, like most of us, enjoy such programming on occasion, and have certainly burned more than a little bit of free time watching it. Yet, in the midst of all of this chaff, there is plenty of wheat for us to separate; videos that makes YouTube truly a tool worth having in our lives.
First, it is chock full of educational content for everyday use, which means that you can learn about pretty much anything under the sun. In addition to a multitude of tie-tying techniques, YouTube offers some fantastic (and simple to follow, even for a cooking neophyte) demonstrative recipes for preparing potato gnocchi (a dish I can’t live without), changing a flat tire (so you’ll still be OK when your iPhone dies, and you can’t reach AAA), to how to form a limited liability corporation (although obtaining formal legal advice can still be a good idea). YouTube is filled with capable people, who want to share what they know, with the world around them.
This platform is also a powerful supplemental tool for academic instruction. We should remember that Khan Academy got it’s real start when founder Sal Khan, who was tutoring his younger cousin, began posting his instructional videos to YouTube, and drew the attention of a wider audience. Many universities now offer a variety of coursework online, such that, over the course of an afternoon at a coffee shop, you can listen to microeconomics lectures from professors at MIT, learn about politics from academics at UCLA (my alma matter), and ponder the power of calculus with an instructor at Stanford. If we want to push our knowledge boundaries, and can build the required motivation, YouTube can certainly help to facilitate that journey.
Something which is less commonly noted, but just as relevant, is the potential for YouTube to uplift us. Thanks to the ease with which people can splice together various fragments of audio and video, we have been treated to a variety of motivational videos, which often pair powerful speeches of personal empowerment , with intense scenes from movies, or vigorous athletic competition. I have enjoyed watching these pieces before a big day at work, or during a moment when I felt I wasn’t performing at the level I should. And, more often than not, I came away feeling empowered.
YouTube also offers clips from a variety of speakers who bring great depth and clarity to life, ranging from Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, to Steve Jobs, Simon Sinek, and many other thought leaders across a range of fields. From their lessons, we can increase our drive and determination, and also acquire some of the knowledge and attitude needed to push forward to our dreams, from those who have actually lived a life of achievement.
Perhaps most importantly of all, YouTube, at it’s core, is creating a repository of the world’s memories, experiences, thoughts and knowledge. Classic moments in cinema, television and music, along with some of the most important social, cultural, intellectual and political events in human history, are preserved on YouTube, for the entire world to see, feel and hear. In a sense, nothing will ever really be “forgotten.” YouTube offers us a chance to preserve much of that which is most important to us, and ensure that it lives on for millennia to come.
What’s more, every single human is, in a sense, capable of participating in this task. There’s not some stern arbiter deciding what is important or insignificant, or telling anyone which moments ought to be preserved, while others are tossed into the wastebin of time. Each of us chooses what matters, whether collective or personal in nature, and can create a representative YouTube clip, ensuring that it stays online forever.
If many people agree with our choice, this video will end up with lots of views and user engagement; if not, that isn’t a loss either. You choose what to put out there, and no one can really stop you. YouTube is allowing for a democratized approach to the work of defining time, history, meaning, and culture. That can be incredibly empowering.
Google: The most common response to any question or inquiry these days seems to be “Just Google It.” This tells us much about the power of Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s creation. Google has inched closer to perfecting the work that Jerry Yang and and David Filo began with Yahoo in 1995, of organizing the world’s information in an easily accessible manner.
As a thought exercise, try to imagine living a week of your daily life without being able to search on Google. It’s hard, isn’t it? Google leads us to answers about everything from the best lunch specials in our neighborhood, to how long it will take to reach a scenic hiking trail, and the intricacies of cell division, calculus and the Watergate scandal. Really, it makes the world around us more comprehensible. It is vital to consider just how critical such a function really is.
Beyond the very obvious utility of such a tool, there’s a deeper power to Google; it reduces information asymmetry, and helps to level the playing field in a variety of matters. Daniel Pink offers an interesting example of this in To Sell is Human. He cites two car dealerships, one of which sells used cars, and implements a more traditional sales method, taking advantage of the longstanding knowledge gap between buyer and seller. The other dealership understands that in the Internet era, customers have far more awareness of the product they are purchasing, and so, the buying process becomes more collaborative, with the purchaser and seller working together to ensure a smooth transaction.
The second dealership is far busier and more financially successful, because it has taken the realities of the digital era into account, and adjusted it’s business strategy accordingly. While Pink doesn’t attribute this shift to Google specifically (rather, the Web more broadly), it is clear that Google is the means by which this sort of information becomes accessible to the public, and further empowers the average consumer.
Google has bridged this type of gap in areas far beyond car sales, or even retail transactions more broadly. Before a doctor’s visit, or beginning the use of a new medication, patients can access an array of medical information, while learning more about a particular doctor’s background and treatment approach. While there is certainly a risk of obtaining incorrect information online, there is also a tremendous opportunity to enter the medical process armed with greater knowledge, and thus handle one’s medical treatment more effectively.
The same is true in legal and financial matters, which has shifted the power of gatekeepers like lawyers, bankers and financial advisors, requiring them to connect with those they serve in more of a team fashion, as not only a counselor but also a partner of sorts, rather than as some distant fountain of wisdom. It also requires these professionals to offer better, more cost-effective services, or lose out to those who can.
Thanks to this stream of new information, there is great potential for people to not only know and learn more about a multitude of topics, but also make more informed decisions, and take greater control of their lives. We can thank Google for this shift.
Facebook: The social network born in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room has had a seismic impact. Much of Facebook’s billion plus users make use of the site primarily to share photos, check-ins to various places of interest, and life events of some (let’s be honest, quite often, rather limited) personal significance.
Facebook does allow us, in some sense, to keep track of and stay in touch with people whom we know with various degrees of familiarity, and to stay current on a heavily curated version of their lives. Whether Facebook actually brings us any closer to others remains unclear at best, but it does at least offer us more frequent glimpses into some version of our contact’s lives.
Yet, the connectivity which Facebook offers does carry some tangible benefits. For one, it allows us to pool the knowledge of an entire network of people, whom we have at least some degree of trust in. Over the past several years, I’ve made requests of my Facebook network, which has helped me find an attorney for a friend who was dealing with an unfamiliar legal matter, obtain suggestions on supplemental career resources for myself, and of course, find delicious restaurants to check out in both New York and Los Angeles.
While I could obtain all of this information by searching online, or reaching out to individual friends who might be able to assist, being able to quickly seek insights from those whom I know and trust in some capacity, and whom I am confident have some useful knowledge of a particular topic, is considerably more convenient and useful.
I have also seen other people use Facebook in even more impactful ways. Several friends have raised money for deeply meaningful causes, such as cancer research or undeserved public schools, and used Facebook to solicit many sponsors. I’ve seen other folks reach out for leads for new job opportunities, while some people have sought comfort during a difficult time, and found real (often, offline) support from friends, family, and even those whom they don’t know as well, but have perhaps been there before.
At a more global level, there are even greater examples of how Facebook can make use of broader social networks to create positive change. The New York-based photoblog Humans of New York, which built a massive following in large part thanks to Facebook, recently raised $1 million for an underprivileged Brooklyn school which it had profiled. Perhaps most memorably, in 2014, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raised more than $100 million in research funding for the disease, through it’s memorable Facebook video campaign.
At it’s best, Facebook can leverage the inherent human desire to help others, by sharing a range of knowledge, and offering friendship and support, in ways both large and small, and to those closest to us, as well as strangers whom we have never met. Through such acts, we are all at least a little better off. Facebook deserves credit for making this possible.
Twitter: Twitter does several things which are fundamentally important. For one, just as with YouTube videos, it gives us each a voice, to be heard by an audience that spans much of the world. If you have something to contribute to the human conversation, all you have to do is share it in a Tweet, or perhaps a series of Tweets, or even post it in a blog, and Tweet that link, perhaps with relevant hashtags attached.
In time, if this Tweet resonates with the broader online community, people follow you, or perhaps retweet your comments, spreading your message to a wider audience. On the other hand, if they stridently disagree with your stance, they can initiate a conversation on Twitter (which often degenerates into insults, shouting matches, and gross distortions, but nonetheless, does allow people to battle in the arena of ideas, often with those whom they’ve never met). Twitter is, at it’s core, a global conversation, which captures the power each of us has, to spread our voices out to the mass of humanity all around us.
There’s something else that Twitter does, which even the most skilled journalists never could: be present just about everywhere, all the time. From the Superbowl to the European refugee crisis to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and a million places hidden in between, Twitter allows us to obtain live coverage and insights of virtually any event, from those who are either participating in or witnessing it occur, whether or not reporters are present to cover it.
One can directly hear the thoughts of a student or shopkeeper who is watching a political revolution unfold in his or her hometown, and is perhaps a member of one faction or another, which are involved in what is occurring. Twitter thus removes the filters and biases imposed by journalists and news organizations, while offering a voice to those who might not otherwise be heard. Of course, one must maintain a healthy degree of skepticism towards any source of information, on Twitter or elsewhere, and keep in mind that each may have their own biases or lack of credibility (of course, the same is true of virtually all media, including mainstream news organizations).
But still, Twitter creates a richer, more varied human conversation, bringing us coverage and insights that would otherwise remain in the dark. What’s more, with Twitpic and Periscope, we can view photos, and watch live video, of events as they unfold, and thus further broaden our understanding of human and natural events. Twitter has opened a new window into the world, one through which each of us can both consume and contribute to the world at large, and again, choose what we believe to be most important. For that, Twitter is truly a transformative Web platform.
The Best Of The Rest: To be sure, there are far more than just four impactful sites on the Internet. Beyond just video, search and social, the Internet allows mankind to share thoughts and knowledge about a variety of topics (from crowdsourcing business reviews on Yelp, to acquiring a range of new knowledge online through Skillshare, Udemy and so many other platforms), disseminate quirky humorous content (one of my favorite sites for this is XKCD, as well as the biting satire of The Onion), create powerful stories and essays on Blogger and Medium, share images of this big, beautiful existence we are living, through a million different angles and lenses, on Instagram, while we raise money for projects and causes through Kickstarter and other funding platforms, and of course, engage with just about every matter of any possible significance, through an innumerable number of blogs and forums. And that’s just scratching the surface. The Internet allows each of us to laugh, cry, learn, grow, support, and just as importantly, share our unique gifts and perspective with the world around us.
Why Must We Appreciate The Internet?
Facebook, Google, and YouTube, as well as many other Internet firms, are multi billion dollar entities, which can attract talented employees from around the globe, and develop products which have a lasting impact on the world around us. What’s more, many of us who enjoy creating content and posting it online, or like to build new web platforms, would do so even for a minimal audience, because we love to share our varied perspectives with the world (I’d certainly continue writing and sharing it on online, even if few people read what I have to say). So, why am I pausing to sing the praises of the World Wide Web?
Because only by taking time to really consider the opportunity which the Web offers mankind as a whole, can we continue to grow, innovate and improve what is offered online. If we take the Internet for granted, and pretend that Google, YouTube, Khan Academy, and a million other websites always existed, then we will lose sight of what life would be like without these tools, and how much effort went into making them possible.
We might forget that the only means through which the human experience improves, in any realm, is through an urge, which eventually becomes a burning desire, to make things just a little easier, slightly faster, somewhat more interesting, just a tad more useful. The history of the Internet is that of humanity as a whole: A narrative of experimentation, creation, and growth, every step of which was pushed forward by a desire to improve our shared condition.
After all, Google’s search engine was born out of a wish to better curate the world’s information, and look at where it has led us today. The same is true of so many other Internet domains, which stem from a need to bring something different to our planet. When it comes to the Web, if we envision it, we (or someone among us), can probably create it, and perhaps change lives in the process.
So the question now is: what do we want the Web to accomplish next? Do we hope to make basic medical treatment more accessible in cities, states and nations with a lack of physicians? Or perhaps demystify the legal system, in America and abroad, to ensure that people know and can better assert their rights? Or maybe would we like to find an improved method for businesses to find the talent they need to grow? What if we can find ways to use the Internet to better monitor and fight human rights violations? Or maybe it’s time to really transform the middle school math learning experience, once and for all?
Whatever the goal is, when one considers where the Internet has taken us over the past few decades, we are reminded that making each of these dreams a reality is, with the proper actions, very much possible. After all, it’s been done before, with a thousand other once-imaginary concepts that are realities in today’s Web.
So, here’s to the Internet, which has given me, you, and all of us, so very much. But yet, there is much more to be done. Ponder what the Web has become. Then, let’s think about what needs to come next . It’s time. Let’s get to work. As for me, I need to figure out the nuances of the bow tie. YouTube, give me a second. I’ll be right there.
