Humans and the Internet

Les  24th Feb 2011 01:25:39

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Humans are naturally inquisitive and resourceful creatures and I'm sure sooner or later the daily dose of shallow TV media news and entertainment will not be enough. We are already seeing people especially the younger generation actually turning off the TV altogether and getting their news and entertainment online.

Online we're exposed to many more viewpoints and so we don't have to go along with the usual TV news format of bad news, bad news, ridicule of new ideas, bad news and then the fluffy ahhhh story at the end. We can read what we like and follow information coming from many different sources.

I've always been interested in UFOs and alien life. I remember watching the children’s TV series called 'UFO' by Gerry Anderson the producer of the puppet series Thunderbirds. It started me thinking about alien life and the things people have seen in the skies. At about the same time NASA had men walking on the moon and I had a set of 'Space Age' Meccano.

In those days to get information about those subjects meant going to the library and hopefully they had books that were just as interesting to read as the pictures on the front cover. Although the books were usually the same limited information about planets and stars and with artist impression's of what alien life may look like. There was no real alien information at all and if sightings were mentioned it was treated as a joke.

When 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' came out in 1977 I went to see that film at least 8 times. After I saw it the first time I told all my friends about it and I'd go with them to see it again and again.

In 1981 I was with a group of friends walking through a park or cricket ground in West London when we all saw a UFO fly high above our heads but it was below the clouds. It looked like a silver ball. It could have been sunlight reflecting off it but it was very bright and fast. It only took a few seconds from when we noticed it coming towards us, to it disappearing into the distance. It wasn't a balloon. I'm not even sure there were those metallic looking helium filled balloons in 1981 (I could be wrong). I did know that I wouldn't be able to find a book that could tell me what we'd just seen.

Nowadays when I want to find out about any subject I search the web and usually find what I'm looking for. If it's UFOs, forgotten ancient history, the moons of Jupiter or even what to buy for someone’s birthday, I'll find a wide range of information or products.

The internet is great like TV was in the past. I just hope that big business doesn't get a strangle hold on it like it did with TV. In Britain the commercials are for about 5 minutes every 15 minutes. In the US it's even worse. I can already see the signs; Google's getting more and more rich and powerful putting the big spenders to the top of the list, Commercial breaks in the YouTube videos and viral email commercial videos.

As I said at the beginning; humans are naturally inquisitive and resourceful creatures so when the internet gets dumbed down like TV was they'll find something else that interests them.