Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884

This Side of the Pond

Notes from an Uprooted Englishwoman

In case it escaped your notice, the internet turned 30 years old last week, an anniversary for which I should obviously take some credit on the basis that the man who invented it lives in my home town. He wasn’t living there when the World Wide Web was born, but it’s where he cut his teeth.

In fact, his home of choice both before and after his biggest achievement is just down the road from my mum and dad. They claim they’ve never met him, though my mum had no idea who he was until yesterday, so she could easily have exchanged pleasantries in the bakery without knowing it.

If you’ve never thought to wonder who was responsible for cat videos and angry forum trolls, his name is Sir Tim Berners-Lee. You may have caught a glimpse of him during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London, when he appeared in an awkward skit involving a neon house.

In the scene, two teenagers use their cell phones to communicate until the house lifts up to reveal the embarrassed gentleman sitting inside. He waves at the crowd, tweets a message and some 70,000 people in the audience hold up paddles to spell it out: “This is for everyone”.

That right there was Berners-Lee, displaying all the charm and charisma in an uncomfortable situation for which we Brits have come to be known. Meanwhile, a billion people around the world wondered why there was a man in a suit sitting at a table and when we’d be starting the fireworks.

I believe the skit came shortly after one in which some dancers dressed as nurses and wheeled hospital beds around in what I am told was a tribute to the National Health System. The best word to describe Britain’s version of the traditional opening ceremony was “eccentric”, but I suppose that’s only to be expected from the director of Trainspotting.

Anyway, that’s by the by. Sir Berners-Lee invented the internet at CERN (the European Particle Physics Laboratory) to help his colleagues manage information. Apparently, when he sent a proposal to his boss, he got the reply we all dream of when submitting a project to management: “vague but exciting”.

I was just a kid when this was all happening – I am of the strange generation that grew up offline and then one day discovered Wikipedia. There was no such thing as a tablet or smartphone during my schooldays; in fact, my introduction to the internet occurred when I was already a senior, when our school board gave in and bought enough computers to fill a small room, but only one modem.

We crowded round in awe at the telltale whirring noise of a computer getting itself connected. We didn’t know what to do once it was online, but we were very impressed at being there.

It was only at university that I really understood the joys of faster communication. My housemates and I would sit in our rooms, within easy shouting distance, and message one another instead of getting our work done. I’ll never forget the “uh oh” noise of the messenger app, signaling that my neighbor had sent me an important message that probably said something along the lines of, “Shall we make some toast?”

I will also never forget the now-defunct social media hangout called MySpace, which I didn’t much like. The idea was fine, but I always forgot to turn my speakers down when I opened a person’s profile and instantly began blaring someone else’s favorite song across the dorms.

I remember the first memes, including a cartoon featuring a song that remains stuck in my head to this day. Its lyrics go as follows: “badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, mushroom, mushroom”.

Quality songwriting, that. I can’t think why it never won a Grammy. A while back, I introduced my husband to the badger song; seems he won’t be forgiving me in a hurry.

In my second year, I dated a guy who was a whizz with computers and able to bypass the university firewall. Suddenly, we could visit whatever website we wanted and download whatever we pleased, no matter what the deans might think of its appropriateness.

I got it into my head that the phrase “behind the firewall” was really cool and set about telling anyone who would listen, and several who didn’t want to, that I was about to go “behind the firewall”. I was mortified to later find out not only that I didn’t sound cool at all, but that we were actually in front of the firewall instead of behind it; no wonder I got so many confused looks.

Those were innocent days, before entire lives were lived online and young folk glued cell phones to their palms. The black hole of the internet is slowly sucking us all in – and I’m not the only one who feels a niggle of concern.

Sir Berners-Lee published an open letter on the 30th birthday of his invention. He is concerned that the internet is no longer a “force for good” and believes we need to fight harder against three “sources of dysfunction”: deliberate malicious behavior such as hacking; ad-based revenue models that reward clickbait; and unintended consequences of the internet’s design, such as the polarizing discussions it allows to take place.

I believe he’s right. To me, the last 30 years have been a digital version of the old west as we all experimented with the possibilities and fumbled to establish rules and boundaries.

It’s a lawless place, the World Wide Web, and it’s unsurprising that we see the sort of behavior you’d expect in a Wild West shootout, only with pixels and unkind words. Berners-Lee may well have given us the greatest gift since some bright spark discovered fire, but it’s up to us to use it mindfully and with respect for the consequences it could have.

Berners-Lee called for all of us to join the fight. We citizens play the most important role of all, he said, by engaging in healthy conversations and taking responsibility for our own personal data.

It will be a long road, but don’t worry, cat videos are still fine. I see no potential for harm in footage of a fluffy thing falling off furniture, and how else would we all get through those dull Monday mornings?