post-it note, 2/19/09

Hyperstimulated sensitivity is a term for something that happens everyday in the United States. There are so many reasons for people to believe anything and everything, and the same amount of reasons to disbelieve. Keeping the facts straight through so many outlets including the internet, newspapers, magazines, nightly news and here-say. To understand the truth is almost irrelevant when so many sources say so many different things.

Take wikipedia. As a website, there are editors and professionals that ensure that the site is accurate. But when anyone can post anything on the site, there must be a period of time when the information is inaccurate. Even though the information will be corrected, there is inaccurate information even on regulated sites were democratized information is available. Stating an opinion is important, although, as we have discussed, blogging on the internet means to some that their opinion is actually an educated critique on whatever the topic being blogged about is.

The ironic thing about this account is that the internet is the result of a cultural phenomenon of which hypersimulated sensitivity can be attributed. The internet offers a realm where pictures of celebrities and web cams into homes offer broken bits of information up for interpretation. One thing is posted, like a report on CNN.com and the article can be commented on. Usually the comments are from the truly satisfied reader offering snaps for the author or those who disagree with the story, how it was reported or how it was framed or on the very nature of the topic of the report. All of that information that must be trudged though is important in that non-reporters are now able to post their own ideas. But posting an idea does not make it true or fact.

I think that many people believe everything on the internet because in the infancy of the internet, only qualified journalists and wealthy, therefore educated, individuals had access to it. But now, it is easy to see that there is a stigma about the internet. The duality that exists are those who believe in it and those who question it. It is plain to see that the internet does not have all of the answers when those answers are set against each other.