A Click Away

We’ve all heard it a million times — “don’t trust the Internet.” Our doctors remind us after we Google our symptoms, our parents warn us before we accept a friend request on Facebook and our teachers reprimand us when we use Wikipedia as a source for our research paper.

It’s obvious that not everything on the Internet is true. But that doesn’t mean that everything on the Internet is false, either. The Harbinger believes that this generation should trust the Internet, but within reason.

The Editorial Board voted 10 in favor and 1 against.

As long as we are wary, we should take advantage of the Internet as an important resource. We have access to information about anything and everything literally at our fingertips. We should utilize this abundance of information, but we should also be sure to check our facts and think critically.

For example, there have been one too many instances when a satirical news story has been taken seriously. Earlier this year, after marijuana was legalized in Washington and Colorado,  fake articles from various websites claiming large amounts of people had died within the first 24 hours of legalization began to circulate. As outlandish as these claims may seem, many people believed them. This is when thinking critically comes in — when something sounds crazy, it probably is.

Say you’re reading an article that’s a little less out there, maybe you’re researching something on Wikipedia. In this case, it wouldn’t hurt to click on another link and verify what you’ve found. Fact checking on a second website takes only a few seconds, but could potentially save a lot of trouble down the road when you find out what you thought to be true turned out to be a hoax.

This seems like common sense, but it is the only way to use the Internet effectively.

The Internet was designed to distribute information and make life easier. It’s silly for us to be so worried about misinformation that we don’t take advantage of its benefits. We can use the Internet to look up current events, educate ourselves about candidates and of course, look up pointless facts to prove our friends wrong.