I hear so many good things and am so fascinated with what you can do with the Internet. Finding all this information so quickly must make your life very easy. But please tell me: how do you assess the value of all this information you find on the Internet? How can you be sure that it is reliable and credible? Also, I have heard the term “digital divide.” What exactly does it mean, and how do you think this divide could be bridged?
Thank you for helping me to understand these issues!
Best regards,
Your friend
Dear Friend, I just wanted to see if I can help you understand a little about the internet and answer some of the questions you had. In the beginning you had to have a phone line, but the big cable companies started to use the cable system to transfer the data making it faster and more reliable. Private companies would start-up web browsers and search engines, internet service providers and email; all quickly changed the landscape and the culture around us. Many people became rich and powerful, but along with them came the scammers and those that were less ethical. Because of them the reliability of what you were reading, viewing or watching became suspect. There was so much money to be made because the net had exploded into almost every household in America. You had asked how to check the reliability of what you are reading; there are many ways to do this. The simplest way is to look at the internet as a vast array of knowledge and ask who you trust to be fair and accurate. If you get your news from newspapers or from television, then you can easily go to their web sites for information. Another way would be to use the WIKI websites. These sites are open for all to post, but are also monitored for their accuracy. The largest of all would be Wikipedia. Even though it is made up of User Generated Content
