How have fundamental assumptions of knowledge and truth been changed by the advent and development of the Internet, particularly the Web? We have to be cognoscente of the long-term changes that may be developing within younger people as the Web becomes an integral part of their lives and the primary vehicle in the search for information and truth.
If anyone can post a website and make truth claims no matter how “out there,” and if informational websites come and go, as so many do when the first link we use to find the site no longer works, how does that influence the developmental aspects of how we think about the accumulation of knowledge and the understanding of how to discern truth claims? A website claims “this is absolutely true,” above and beyond the “competition,” and then it is gone. Is the “truth” gone?
This may be a bit fare fetched, but the way the Web is so ingrained in the daily lives of people, especially younger people, it will eventually effect the way they perceive and understand information gathering and truth claims, and particularly with the ascendancy of Post-Modernism as the foundational worldview of young people.
Most young people no longer grow up within a family of faith, no matter what religion or pietistic practice. Either parents have an honest, but flawed in my opinion, intention of allowing their children to choose their own religion when they become adults or the parents are just too lazy to get them off to church, temple, mosque, or whatever house of worship, kids will begin to search for Truth and Meaning. Today, almost of their entire searching process is on the Web. They generally will not visit brick-and-mortar buildings and visiting small-groups is becoming less likely. If they are given no instruction at home or school in how to judge legitimate from illegitimate religious expression or true from false truth claims, the Web provides a vast plain of land mines just waiting for the kids.
The copious amounts of information on the Web is wonderful, but if we are not given the tools to enable us to effectively judge between truth claims and if we are not taught how to effectively navigate through it all, we are preparing a generation for mental/informational chaos. I’m not talking about making declarations that the information on this or that website is false, but the ability to discern and judge prudently, especially when forms of popular post-modernism yell that all points of view are of equal value and truth, all worldviews are accurate and acceptable, or all moral positions are worthy of consideration and respect.
Christian tradition claims that it is the only True religion – Jesus Christ is the only way to God, etc. If our primary assumptions negate such claims of absoluteness, and if knowledge is always shifting and appearing and disappearing, as it does on the Web, how will the Christian faith respond? What will be the anchor point for young people?
I’m just thinking about his stuff. It all is very unformed and unfinished, but still rolling around in my brain.