The Internet

The networking that permeates the Internet makes it potentially the most intellectually challenging of the new media forms, and probably also the most dangerous. Consider what email, websites, and search engines could do five years ago and what they can do now. Blogs didn't even exist. Project ahead five years, and it's obvious that many new interactive forms will emerge that will force sophisticated thought.

Print media are expensive and so publishers typically check sources to insure credibility. A student who cites a print source in a course paper is thus more certain of its credibility than a student who clips information off a website. The Internet is a free for all, and so sexual predators, con artists, and folks who want to spread misinformation can do it as easily as those who act responsibly. It takes intelligence to stay one step ahead of Internet schlock and treachery.

Pac-Man and Donkey Kong almost defined the videogame genre a half-generation ago, and other forms of electronic media have similarly exploded within our culture. We won't return to what was. The challenge for parents and educators is to prepare the next generation for the natural and electronic environments in which they will live. Steve Johnson's thoughtprovoking contribution has been to suggest that the challenge isn't as hopeless as it seems, that the electronic media developments many consider to be culturally negative may actually be intellectually positive.