World Wide Web

:For the world's first web browser, see WorldWideWeb.

Sociological implications

The Web, as it stands today, has allowed global interpersonal exchange on a scale unprecedented in human history. People separated by vast distances, or even large amounts of time, can use the web to exchange-- or even mutually develop-- their most intimate and extensive thoughts, or alternately their most casual attitudes and spirits. Emotional experiences, political ideas, cultural customs, musical idioms, business advice, artwork, photographs, literature, can all be shared and deseminted digitally with less individual investment than ever before in human history. Although the existence and use of the Web relies upon material technology, which comes with its own disadvantages, its information does not use physical resources in the way that libraries or the printing press have. Therefore, propogation of information via the Web (via the internet,in turn) is not constrained by movement of physical volumes, or by manual or material copying of information. And by virtue of being digital, the information of the Web can be searched more easily and efficiently than any library or physical volume, and vastly more quickly than a person could retrieve information about the world by way of physical travel or by way of mail, telephone, telegraph, or any other communicative medium.

Related Topics:
Libraries - Printing press - Internet - Digital - Mail - Telephone - Telegraph

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The Web is the most far-reaching and extensive medium of personal exchange to appear on Earth. It has probably allowed many of its users to interact with many more groups of people, dispersed around the planet in time and space, than is possible when limited by physical contact or even when limited by every other existing medium of communication combined.

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Because the Web is global in scale, some have suggested that it will nurture mutual understanding on a global scale. By definition or by necessity, the Web has such a massive potential for social exchange, it has the potential to nurture empathy and symbiosis, but it also has the potential to incite belligerance on a global scale, or even to empower demagogues and repressive regimes in ways that were historically impossible to achieve.

Related Topics:
Belligerance - Demagogues

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