The internet can help humanity

                This past week we began talking about some positives of social media and the Internet that is a completely different direction than most of this course has taken. For the past several weeks we have delved into the study of the dark side of the Internet. Articles about the dark web, trolls, bots, and shaming have all been discussed and shared. All of these things show the darkest side of humanity with some of these even causing the death of people, although usually indirectly. Until this week I had started to honestly believe that social media offered few if any benefits to humans, and that we would most likely be better off without it. I mean the mere fact that it can change the way you think should be enough to determine that it is not normal or completely healthy for you. But a little faith was restored this week with the talk about crowd sourcing being a viable option to help catch criminals of all levels from terrorists to simple bike thieves. Crowd sourcing can also be used to help start movements and help many people in the process. There is also this new concept to me of digital altruism. After reading a few of the Facebook articles it has become clear that this behavior is on the rise, meaning that the internet is spurring people to actually want  to help each other. Digital altruism doesn’t have to be monetary like many people (including myself until recently) believed. It can be based on sharing experiences with people with the main point being that you go out of your way to help someone without any reward to yourself. The internet actually makes it easier to help more people than previously before with people now being able to take a few seconds of their time to encourage many other people to help them have a better day. Overall this just reestablishes my belief that most things can be used for good or bad.