Sunday, February 17, 2008

Surfing ,

The daily routine of surfing on the internet is becoming an more and more personal experience that is developing in the direction of personal interest and the specific field . The normal way of finding information and being informed is changing . More and more the news that we get are part of the structure of the world wide web and is is formed out of websites and all kinds of mediums that are web related and non traditional as interviews and the compact way of sending out news trough television broadcast .
People are starting to surf for information and connect to the internet to get their daily dosage of information and news . The news that you get is the news that you find not as in the case of television news where the information is arranged by an person that works as an editor or information entrepreneur that decides what is important and how can things be presented in a specific time spam that is the time spam of the news . Going with the things more deep and trying to apply the principle of selfanalisis on the way I surf the net everyday made me realize that there is a strong connection between the working field interests and the way I search for information . Surfing is generated trough search engines , websites and hyperlinks these are the main components that take part in the action of search for information of the need of being up to date . A normal “news “ day incorporates for me the search on websites that are related to design , architecture and art , a browse trough blogs that can be quite chaotic because of the way information is organized in the blog examples . In the case of a blog browsing one can find from hyperlinks, that can take you in a completely new direction to video , audio or personal content . What is an interesting phenomenon that occurs in the majority of cases in witch users browse trough the internet is the fact that more and more creative people spend time on the world wide web instead following their normal life and jobs . This phenomenon was discussed by Bruce Sterling the science fiction author and one of the persons that is part of the cyberpunk movement together with William Gibson and outer science fiction authors . Bruce Sterling said about this that it is an interesting way in witch people spend more and more time in the virtual environment searching for information , browsing trough websites , videos , mails or simply just going from link to link and browsing with the help of hyperlinks . People that are working in the creative field are surfing and using their creative capacities to find new ways of surfing and going trough the complex informational structures of the world wide web . These people ( i identify myself with this group ) are not searching for a specific subject and are not looking for information that is related to a specific subject instead they
are just browsing trough the web reading and prosuming every type of information that comes and cresses their path ; they are not spending time on the computer to improve their personal working skills or to learn new types of softwares and to look for a subject related type of information , they just hang out in “outer “ reality , the virtual space and go from link to link with the drive of a detective without a case . The search for information is chaotic and does not have and pre planned ways of approach the user is just jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink going in this way trough all kinds of sites and content that is found on the web . Some people with a stronger experience related to web surfing developed a certain pattern of personal surfing and and style of looking , searching and finding information that is needed in their daily activities . They use an analytical way of looking at the content that is combined with a rational connection logic . In this way they let themselves guided by the content that they find in
a non chaotic way that can be balanced with concepts that are found in their daily life and work ethics .
Browsing can be an addictive process and after a while the need for information can grow exponentially with the time and the quantity of information that one person uses and prosumes . There is a small connection between what Bruce Sterling is describing in is speech that is related to the internet and the users that are browsing it and the theories of Joshua Davis that are related to the internet and his views on what it is as a medium . Joshua Davis is puts up the hypothesis in witch he describes the world wide web as black hole that is ruled by the chaos theories ; a black hole is a cosmic phenomenon that sucks all the planets and the space that is found in it's way inside so here is the connection between the theories of Joshua Davis and Bruce Sterling that is saying about it that it is a medium where people are spending more and more time in this way they get sucked inside it by the continuous flow of information .So the “black hole “ from the theories of Joshua Davis can be considered and seen synonymous with a black hole that is accumulating information and dragging users in this place that is governed by different laws as the laws that are applied in reality . This kind of “new addiction “ can be experienced on an individual level each day when we gat lost in searching on one subject and suddenly we find ourselves with a complete different end result or in the position that we adopt wen we stay at the computer and we search for the most commode body position so we can spend as much time as we want in the reality of the web . The position witch can be adopted by the user depends on the type of computer that is in use but in the case of a laptop users can start staying in a position that resembles to the position of the body that was used i the matrix movie in with the human computer interface was direct and such terminals as keyboard or mouse or monitors where not used anymore everything was interconnected and the connection with the brain of the user was direct and physical .The world wide web is a place full of information that has a huge range or hyperlinks that can “teleport “ one user from one site or address to a new location in no time , it seems that time and speed in this space is measured within the number of clicks that one user makes with the mouse ; but things can be relative and different from how we understand movement , one user can be in multiple places in the same time in this way being connected trough different avatars to different sites that contain the required information . The web can be a place that is animated and that takes one user from ato b in a chaotic way , in some cases there is no a and b .

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