Although I think me and many people would choose this “home-cooked, locally-grown, heart-felt digital meals over factory-farmed fast food” every time, I don’t think many people really even know the difference. Some people may not care enough to learn where the content they consume comes from, while others may not have the media literacy skills needed to recognize the difference. This makes me think that having access to good information is only part of the problem; people also need to know how to identify it. Without these skills, it can be easy to consume low-quality or misleading content without even realizing it.

This paragraph makes me wonder what would happen if this trend continues. Will people eventually stop sharing their work online altogether? If there is no financial incentive from clicks and views, will fewer people be willing to share their research online, perhaps causing us to return to physical media such as books? This idea also reminds me of something called the “dead internet theory,” which suggests that people will eventually become so fed up with the amount of low-quality, AI-generated content online that they stop using the internet altogether. The theory suggests that, eventually, the internet could become mostly AI bots interacting with one another rather than real people.

Unfortunately, I believe that the barriers being put up are the beginning of a time when credible information will become even harder to find. Most students are not willing to pay to access information just to ensure that the sources they use for their papers are accurate. As more authors and scholars put their work behind paywalls, students may have to rely more heavily on information that is freely available, which is not always as reliable. I do not blame independent authors or scholars for using paywalls, however. I would not want my own work to be taken and used without receiving credit either.

This makes me think about how school boards and institutions may eventually have to create agreements with scholars and publishers so that students can access credible information for free through their school logins.

This paragraph reminded me of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (now known as “X”). I remember in 2023, when he introduced the idea of charging a fee to use the app, there was a lot of outrage online. Although the idea was discussed, X did not end up requiring all users to pay to use the platform. This made me think about how much influence users can have when they come together and speak out about changes they disagree with. Although this may be an optimistic way of looking at the situation, I think it is important to recognize that the internet is not entirely out of our control.

I think it is easy to forget how truly amazing the internet really is. Growing up, the internet was already very much in motion. Since it was always around, I tend to overlook the incredible nature of it and instead be hypercritical of it. Especially in the past few years, I find that the internet has become a breeding ground for negativity and insecurity. I think the constant exposure to other people’s idealized lives makes it difficult to recognize the positive aspects of being connected. It makes me wonder how different my relationship with the internet would be if I had grown up without it.

Although I think it is extraordinary that just anyone can create content online, it is also scary. Too many people do not think critically about the content they see on the internet and do not question if the content is accurate or true. I remember growing up, teachers would warn us against using Wikipedia since the pages could easily be edited by anyone at the time, yet many took what the website had to say as fact.