Happy 40th birthday Internet.

The first test that led to the operation of the Internet happened on September 2, 1969.  Many other things happened that summer, including the Apollo 11 lunar landing and Woodstock.  All three events changed the course of history in then unimaginable ways.  None, however, has affected individual lives as much as the Internet.

The Internet made the Web possible. (By comparison, the Web is only half the age of the Internet.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Web has changed so much about our society, culture and habits.  Many are embracing it, while others will continue to shun it.  Regardless of which side you’re on, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the Web is here to stay.

Two recent articles really catalyzed this mental debate.  The first is Clive Thompson on the New Literacy (WIRED). Thompson surmises that writing is not dead – that indeed it has just evolved to suit the times and the new medium:

The first thing [Lunsford] found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

In contrast, the New York Times this past weekend published Facebook Exodus (by Virigina Heffernan) a glum look into the future of the social network:

Is Facebook doomed to someday become an online ghost town, run by zombie users who never update their pages and packs of marketers picking at the corpses of social circles they once hoped to exploit? Sad, if so. Though maybe fated, like the demise of a college clique.

Some will say that the Web is to blame for ADD.  Others will blame it for stealing their identity or being the cause for their gambling addiction.  I blame the Web for my inability to communicate my emotions in person… after all, it’s easier to ROFL than actually “roll on the floor laughing”.

And why the heck not blame the Web for all our wrongs?  For all that makes us feel uncomfortable?  For all the shortcomings of the world?  The Web has no feelings. It can’t defend itself.

That’s exactly why the Web is here to stay.  It’s staunch.  It can stand up against any amount of bashing, any sins thrust upon it.  When all of humanity is wiped out, the World Wide Web will still remain in the clouds somewhere… along with the cockroaches in the flattened earth.

Until that Armageddon though, I think it’s time that we accepted the ways of Web 2.0 (and beyond) as the dawn of the New Renaissance.  Let’s not blame the Web for our lives lacking the slow pace of yesteryear, or children’s inability to conduct research for country reports.  The Web is not impersonalizing relationships, or making families distant.

Instead, the Web lets us enjoy more things in life… get things done quicker so there is more time to enjoy our hobbies, and find new ones.  Children are becoming smarter.  Families can keep in touch in more experiential ways, understand each other deeper.  And “friends” take on new meaning.

Who, after all, can actually have 550 friends in the traditional sense?  I couldn’t.  That would mean that in one year, I could only spend a fraction of one day (66% to be exact) with each person – assuming I didn’t do anything else in life, including sleep.

So, what is the New Renaissance?

It’s still being defined and will be for decades – if not centuries – to come.  But a comparison of the classical Renaissance helps define how I see it:

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art. [Wikipedia]

So then, the New Renaissance is possibly:

A cultural movement that profoundly affects world-wide intellectual life of the 21st century.  Having roots in the Americas, Europe and Asia, its influence affects business, literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, technology, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry.  New Renaissance scholars employ the humanist and philosophical methods in study, and searches for semantics, sapience and sentience in our virtual presence.

As Thompson mentions in his article, writing is not dead – it’s evolved.  I argue that the same sort of evolution is happening with other aspects of our society.  Life on the “InterWebs” will adapt, evolve, and surely only the fittest will survive.

Facebook may (or may not) be the momentary fad that meets its demise via the collective action of online protest, mass extinction of accounts.  I doubt it.  Facebook’s own platform became the home for protesters angry at Facebook and Hasbro for taking down Scrabulous, or those infuriated with Facebook’s Terms of Service.  A decade ago, this would not have happened.  Any defamation or protest against one’s own platform would surely have been taken down immediately.

Every new change will have it’s nay-sayers.  New processes, styles, fads will shake itself out and reach an equilibrium where a happy medium of new tools will work itself out.  I think that’s where social networking is finally at, for example.  At first there were Friendster and MySpace.   There were sharing issues, privacy concerns, etc.  But over time, people have become comfortable with social networking and online conversations.  Social networks have evolved such that you can control who sees what on your profile.  Similarly, humans have adapted their lives to fit the conversations on social networks so that we’re not afraid of what other people may know about ourselves.

This is just one of many thousands of ways we’ve evolved to adapt to an online world.  I go into more depth below about the world redefined by the World Wide Web.

There will always be those that cling to the past.  And I of all people derive pleasure from reminiscing through old printed photographs of generations past, soundless 35mm videos, ratty sweatshirts and my dozens of mixed tapes.  But if we don’t embrace this New Renaissance that we are in today, I think the digital divide will further separate our society… when the sole purpose of the Web ought to be make the world a more intimate experience.

I admit what I’ve written here is just one-sided.  I am part of a network that is very connected.  I work at the only computing-focused school at the University of California, after all.  I also head a new media consultancy, INCULINK, that relies solely on technological mediums.  And I’m a social media whore – no denying that.  But I think my one-sidedness gives me a deeper appreciation of the potential that is to come in an ever-connected world where the Web becomes more semantic, more experiential.

I’m looking forward to reading this 10 years from now.  Much like I recently enjoyed reading the essay I wrote in 8th grade about where I hoped to be at 30 – the only thing I was right about was marriage, a house, and the dog.

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Redefining Words.

This New Renaissance is also transforming our vocabulary.  What we call “search” or “friends” is not what it was just two decades ago.

• Search: Sure, you may still search for loose coins in your sofa.  But more likely, you’re searching for information on the Web – Google-ing it.  So then, what does the term “googley-eyed” mean now?  (Side thought: with the advent of smartcards, coins will become obsolete one day anyways…)
• Friend: At some point “friend” became a verb, as well as a noun.  To “friend” someone is to connect via a virtual social network.  I don’t “friend” anyone… I need to find some sort of value in the connection I make because too much information is overwhelming.  Yet, I still “friend” others who had a locker next to me in high school, just because I feel like we shared a crucial (and awkward) time in our lives.  Or the person I met at a real friend’s birthday party because we are in the same photo and are now forever connected to each other on Facebook.
• Share: I used to hate to share.  If it meant that I lost half my cookie to my sister, I’d rather have eaten it in secret.  But now I can’t wait to share things with her – YouTube videos, Facebook albums, blog posts, etc. – thereby sharing laughs, memories… knowledge.   I lose nothing, but gain everything.
• Chat: This has been redefined time and again in the past couple of decades: from BBS to mIRC to IMs (instant messaging) to Twitter.  Lunchtime and telephone chats, are more like converstations.  “Chats” today don’t require immediate response.  How many times have we feigned “away” on IM so that we could write re-write the best response?

The endless list goes on…

Redefining Self.

Had I went to college five years earlier than I did – I would likely be working in a lab somewhere pipetting and performing PCRs to amplify genes.  But the World Wide Web let me explore and find a more creative career route.  I was missing the creativity I used to find in music when studying genetics, but I found a way to replace it with writing about technology and communicating on the web.

People can discover themselves in new ways.  Future generations will have infinite more resources than current generations.  But that will only help people to really define themselves early on… to find a passion, and find a community that supports that passion.

This New Renaissance will continue to help people create their own career paths.  Sure medical schools and law schools will always exist.  But the options of what one can do after obtaining their basic training is endless.  People will innovate where there is a need.  And there will always be new needs, as long as there is a stream of information and virtual networks talking amongst themselves.

Redefining Relationships.

As I mention above, the word “friend” has taken on a whole new meaning.  But the difference in relationships don’t end there.  I have made connections with many people around the world thanks to the Web and it’s ability to connect people easily, and relatively.  By relatively, I mean that I can map a definite interest or connection to the people I have created relationships with… and they all come in different forms.

I am very much interested in New Media.  Thus, I join in conversations on sites such as Read Write Web and Mashable and have “friended”  (on Facebook nonetheless), the founders and contributors of such sites. I engage in discussions from them, learn about new media, and also provide fodder for their content from time to time.  I’ve also recently had several conversations with Dame Wendy Hall, co-founder of the Web Science Research Initiative… and realized I may have a calling in web science.

Thanks to the web and social networks, I am more in touch with my high school classmates than I ever was while actually going to high school.  I knew so-and-so was on the swim team.  But I also know now that they love photography and travel and get to see the world through their eyes as we share photos on Flickr.

I also know what family is up to on a daily basis.  I can ask my grandma-in-law how particular book project went at Thanksgiving dinner… instead of digging for niceties.  We can connect more and really understand who we are as individuals.

And professionally, I have been able to build a reputation, a rapport with my colleagues.  They see what I am able to put out on the web and are willing to share more.  Likewise, as a communications director, I am able to use Facebook to “friend” colleagues and find news stories from casually mining their status updates.  Yes, I use Facebook at work…. to accomplish actual work.

On the other hand, what I do online is transparent and any wrong move can come back to haunt me today, even years from now because the Web doesn’t forget.  But the beauty of the Web and this transparency is the speed at which I can make mends.  The Web doesn’t hide who the real me is… it helps me become a better person because you never know who is watching.

Redefining Information.

Not even a decade ago, the Internet and Web were just for just the privelaged, the educated.  Without a $2,000 computer and monthly Internet access, one could not be on the Web.

All you one needs today is a mobile phone to access the Web.  In fact, mobile phones are more ubiquitous in third-world countries that cannot afford desktop or laptop computers than in the U.S.  One recent twitter post via @serkantoto says that the number of mobile phone subscribers in Vietnam is now 107.84 million, up 31% from December 2008.  That is an incredible number of people who have access to information at their fingertips!

Information, accessibility and the ability to not discrimnate who gets what information is a beautiful thing.  (Net neutrality is another issue that is part of this tangled web — pun intended — but I’ll leave that for a separate discussion.)

The World Wide Web is our oyster.

The World is at our fingertips.  Literally.  Virtually.