‘Aspects of the internet’ ethics discussion
Posted Monday 30 November 2009 ~ 3:33pm
The latest in Holy Trinity’s ethics discussion series, ‘Ethics through the drinking class’, considered the some of the many ways in which the internet is changing our lives, for better and worse.
Our ‘Aspects of the internet’ discussion, which took place at the Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, on Tuesday 17 November, was introduced by Holy Trinity member and professional web designer Justin Reynolds. Justin used a presentation illustrated with screenshots of websites to topics including the impact of the web upon the way we consume news, the opportunities it offers politicians and other campaigners to network and organise grassroots movements, the effect the overwhelming choice and complexity of the web has had on our attention spans, and the extent to which it gives expression to the best and worst sides of human nature. Justin also considered the implications the web might have for the ways in which chuches communicate with their members and the communities in which they are embedded.
During the discussion that followed we talked about the intimitating size of the web, and the difficulty of keeping up with even the small fraction of the internet that we choose to engage with when online. We considered the opportunities the web affords for dubious organisations to network, and the extent to which web communications can be regulated by governments and international authorities. We also dicussed the extent to which churches can and should embrace the net as a communications medium: a clear generation gap exists in regard to web use at present that is hard to bridge: many younger people spend several hours a day online, whereas a fair number of the older generation don’t own a computer, and are dependent on printed materials for their news.
Categories: Groups, Ethics through the Drinking Glass