While reading “Cobweb”, I was both a little confused and shocked. I am/was one of those people that believe that everything that is on the website will remain there to haunt you years later. To hear that it doesn’t was actually relieving to me. And no, it’s not just in regards to social media accounts. When she speaks about the court cases and information rotting and being overwritten, I was shocked. I feel like that corrupts the way cases are looked at and the way decisions are made. If information, proof that is vital in the case is here today and gone tomorrow, how can you prepare for your court hearing not knowing if it’ll be there? Some information can be printed, obviously going back to paper form of proof, which I think is great. I thought electronic methods of information cannot get lost. What happened to that proposal? I have mixed emotions about going “paper-free”.
I am not sure if I understood correctly, however it seems like archive.org, technically does have gatekeepers. “The Internet Archive is also stocked with Web pages that are chosen by librarians, specialists like Anatol Shmelev, collecting in subject areas, through a service called Archive It, at archive-it.org, which also allows individuals and institutions to build their own archives”. So unless someone, gets a hold of a URL and wants to archive it, that URL can be rotted within days, months, years, or decades – who knows!
Who knew there is so much controversy and confusion in this era of technology and the World Wide Web! We have got a lot to learn.
In the article, The Reading Brain in the Digital Age”, I agree and disagree with some points. Then again, some points had me thinking. The article states that people reading on screen read “slower, less accurately and less comprehensively”. I happen to read faster on screens that on paper. As I stated before, for textbooks, I prefer having paper form and I never knew why. Maybe the studies are true- unconsciously I understand the material better if I read it from the paper, compared to the screen. “…people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper”. This was another point that I never quite thought about. If it is outside of school, I prefer reading news articles, magazine articles and short pieces of information on screens.
