Is the internet making trust obsolete?
Is the wealth of information available online eliminating the need for people to trust one another?
Original image courtesy flickr.com/scotthudson
Prior to the advent of the world wide web, settling bets was not always an exact science. In many cases resolving a trivial dispute involved phoning an impartial, knowledgeable friend who knew everything there was to know about sports, movies, geography or the like and both sides would have to trust what that source had to say. Today, that knowledgeable friend is the internet. In these situations, and many others, the ease of access and the sheer volume of information available on the internet sees people foregoing the arduous task of building trust with each other in favour of the web.
Trusting another person can be an in-depth, socially and mentally demanding risk. On the other hand, trusting information garnered from established websites such as the Internet Movie Database or ESPN, while still fallible, doesn’t require any social interaction or personal investment. This trend is very much akin to the way email and text messaging has reduced the need for direct conversation. Though rife with misunderstandings and auto-correct disasters, it is still preferable for many — because it’s quick, easy and can avoid time-consuming, unwanted and sometimes awkward social interaction.
This dwindling of trust in those around us isn’t restricted to resolving sports or movie trivia disputes. Thanks to the expansion of the internet into the realm of personal information, it permeates a great number of aspects of our lives. Prospective employers need not trust a candidate, their resume, or even their references; sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Workopolis, Klout and Twitter as well as industry specific sites can tell them all they need to know in order to make a decision, regardless of what a candidate may relate in person.
Trust in romantic situations has been affected as well. Many a first date sees trust deferred, at least until statements (and marital status) can be verified through an obligatory post-date Facebook stalking. Sync editor, Simon Cohen, related the trend to a phrase made famous by U.S. president Ronald Reagan who cautioned those around him to “Trust, but verify”, and much like that tawdry fortune cookie amendment, we need simply to add “on the internet” to update Reagan’s advice to reflect the state of affairs today.
“Trust, but verify” -Ronald Reagan, Russian Proverb
The obvious irony is that everything online is generated by people, both as knowledgeable - and error prone – as those around us, the difference being that we don’t know them personally and facts can be taken at face value with no social repercussions if they turn out to be inaccurate.
Of course there are situations where trust in our fellow human being is unavoidable, just ask anyone whose undergone major surgery or who rides two-up on a motorcycle. Though even in these cases the level of trust required can be mediated by, you guessed it, some research online to quell fears. It’s tempting to pass off this movement away from interpersonal trust as only relating to unimportant things, but trust is something that is built; if we stop trusting each other in regards to seemingly small things, be it sports trivia, a restaurant review, or driving directions we run the risk of eliminating the building blocks that lead to absolute trust in our fellow human beings — but don’t take my word for it.
Do you think that the internet is eliminating the need for us to trust those around us?
Very interesting point of view, Phil. The larger implications of your thesis hadn’t occurred to me but will probably now be a constant consideration. Intuitively, it rings true so I’m gonna take your word for it because sometimes I don’t have time to verify every little thing.
If this sounds like a diatribe of the condition of our society, it is. General society is getting mentally lazier and common sense is uncommon as I have said many times. Warning the Internet can make you stupid and the public educational institutions are not helping much to curb the trend.
Despite the plethora of information on the Internet, it is obviously not the repository of infallible truth. Too few people are willing to ensure that what they’ve heard or read is fact. They are too lazy, too trusting and/or not mentally capable to discern fact from half truths or outright fiction. Unfortunately, our society is based on instant everything without working to gain experience which increases knowledge that gains wisdom. Don’t hurt my feelings, don’t tell me I could do better, don’t belittle my little effort, give it to me I’m entitled. The hell you are.
Trust and verify, isn’t this the reason that one gets a second or third opinion about a serious medical condition. Verification of facts in the educational system is also important or would you rather your personal General Practitioner to have been a lazy plagiarizer. Who hasn’t the mental fortitude to think for himself or herself?
We all have the predisposition, as we should to trust close friends and family. Where they get their information from should be vetted as-well-as our own information should also be verified. Because my family and several of my closest friends are studious skillful intellectuals, I can trust their opinions. The Internet is not so deserving of our trust.
Some good points @Phil, though I believe, as I’ve detailed in the post, that the predisposition you mention is diminishing and that there is a trend of people turning to the internet instead of trusting and interacting with close friends and family. When asked a question they don’t know the answer to, someone with instant access to an internet connected device (i.e. a smartphone) will ask their friend Google rather than phone someone they know.
Phil wrote : “someone with instant access to an internet connected device (i.e. a smartphone) will ask their friend Google rather than phone someone they know.
Could it be because it seems there are less and less people who have knoledges?
@Phil,
Absolutely you’re right friends, family and I would add to the list the learned are less and less first sought out sources. I see it at university where too many students are addressing Google or Wiki when the hard facts are right in front of them, the library and the obvious professors who have decades of practical knowledge to be mined. The more serious students are grabbing books by the armloads and having quiet debates about the subject(s) at hand. We use our computers and pads to compose, compare notes, discuss, draw conclusions and write our papers. Several of us in the same discipline have set aside two days per week with our professor to pick his brain.
In short you’re premise is correct and more worrisome it is systemic. If society stays on this spiral it will become easier and easier for the political elite to manipulate the middle and lower classes. Social experimentation has proven that many times over.
With all of these intelligent this or intelligent that that we have invented i find that we are getting to be more and more lazy and stupid, don’t you think ?
Phil, in answer to your question , Yes, I do think we trust the internet and it is eliminating the need to build trust in our fellow humans. I think it is going even further than that. It is enabling those around us to become untrustworthy by allowing cheating, lying, posting mean and spiteful statements, bullying etc.. This is reinforcing in general that people cannot be trusted. Even those closest to you can and may betray you at some point. There is no guarantee that even your best friend or even your soul mate will stay faithful to your interests. The internet has taught us we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, with whomever we want, however we want (virtually at first, and then progressing to IRL)with no immediate consequences and hence no need to openly and visibly betray trust. However, the trust is broken nonetheless by the behaviour. I have seen it, been affected by it, am jaded by it and extremely distrustful of people in general as a result of not only the internet but a growing entrenched behaviour cenetered around the “all about me first” mentality that has invaded all of our social interactions. Not only is the information people glean from the internet questionable in it’s accuracy but sometimes down right dangerous as decisions affecting people’s lives get made with false or incomplete information. So, at the end of it all, I agree with you. Trust is eroding between real people, and the internet is enabling that erosion. People are getting lazy and complacent because it is easier to let someone else’s opinion replace your own than to take responsibility for your own statements and earn the licence to speak factually.Peace, out.
Trust is overrated. We live in a capitalist society where one cannot afford to trust too much. Buyer beware. Faith, also, is not a virtue. There’s a lot to be said for critical thinking. We must face up to the reality that our fellow human being cannot be trusted, not if we are in competition with him for our very survival and must on occasion lie to gain, or merely protect our assets. The internet from this perspective is very much our friend as it provides seemingly limitless information, whether reliable or not, again, requires the fire of skepticism, questioning, discernment, falsification, etc, to determine. Without the internet though, we are vulnerable to being taken advantage of and exploited for someone elses profit. Captialism creates the distrust of which you speak, not an electronic repository of information. Ignorance is not bliss, and knowledge is power, if you know how to mine it to your advantage. Truth takes work. Faith and trust – wishful thinking. The sooner we accept the reality that we not only cannot, but SHOULD not trust, the better off and more successful at life we will be.
Sad but true Skeptikal. That is how the general population of the world thinks today, as reported by the media anyway, and witnessed by us daily to a certain extent as well. It’s “all about me”. That is one of the main reasons why we are so stressed out today. We always have to keep our guard up, watch our back and can never relax. Very sad indeed.
no the problem is that we have come up with too many excuses to let all sorts of deranged people out in society because some think it was/is wrong to treat or take care of; the end results being what we have today; people getting away with serious crimes against others; and oh..it’s ok it’s not their fault; dad wasn’t home; mum was too busy…and so forth and so forth; when adults try to instill some sense of right; wrong and morals; they are told to butt out..
so the bottom line is….you reap what you so…will it change; maybe…and only if it affects some higher us politicans direclty…once it’s not in their back yard it’s ok…
trust…gone just like common sense….way to go…
i read forums quite often , from repair ideas to legal issues and everything in between , more than 50% of the time the forums are a bunch of knowledge less clowns bantering back and forth between one another , information that isnt worth the air it took to put it out there .
furthermore if the search is lucky enough to uncover some legit facts , those facts didnt just magically come to light through google , that info was somewhere already ( book , library, documents, someones head etc…) , google is just like a trip to the library, without the exercise ,
almost sounds like some government entity trying to start false rumours about the internet , to give them ammo on censorship of the internet , which if it happens will be a whole lot more damaging to the people than looking up a few facts that may or may not be correct.
if you ask me the real killer of trust in our society is without a doubt the river of b.s. that flow from all politicians and big business, they are your worst enemy , monkey see monkey do
The problem i see is that the government and certain agencies have too much control over the internet that putting our documents online is not as trustworthy as we think.Think of in fact that we put out e-mail out there to a website we trust, The next few weeks your getting e-mails from companies you don’t even know. Answer: they sell your e-mail to these companies as a way of exchanging information to get more customers. So if they sell information who else does out there????
“sees people foregoing the arduous task of *building trust* with each other in favour of the web.”
“They are too lazy, *too trusting* and…”
Sooo…the danger is people are foregoing the task of building trust? Or people are too trusting? Which is it? Oh, and the Internet and the Web are capitalized. Yet another arduous task; spell-checking.
People are foregoing the task of building trust with those around them in favour of trusting the web. Whether or not they are too trusting of the web is fodder for another post.
In regards to the capitalization of “web” and “internet”, the arduous task of spell-checking doesn’t account for the subtleties of this grammatical quagmire. Personally, I choose not to capitalize them. Like television or radio, the internet is another medium for information delivery and we don’t capitalize those. There are plenty of conflicting opinions on this particular issue, but there’s only one that matters: my editor’s.
Yes, well, therein lies part of the problem.
Actually, according to CP Style – which we use as our standard on Sympatico.ca – “Internet” is capitalized and “the web” is not. That said, I agree with Phil’s stance that neither should be capitalized (as is already the case at publications such as Wired and CNN) and thus will be taking on the considerable wrath of the editing community in setting yet another precedent by leaving “internet” lower-case.
Interesting. CP Style uses the Oxford English Dictionary as its authoritative guide for spelling.
Oxford English Dictionary
Definition of Internet
(the Internet)
1. a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.
Definition of web
2.(the Web)
the World Wide Web or the Internet: material downloaded from the Web.
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Given the fact that there is only one Internet and one World Wide Web (the Web) the OED considers both to be proper nouns. But meh…I must confess to being hopelessly pedantic in that I adhere to accuracy rather than “personally choose not to use” that which is correct. Silly me.
I prithee tell me where we would be if dictionaries were never updated.
@Kitten,
You Ms. Kitten are not pedantic your an abstruse academic and correct, lol.
Phil:
The definitive argument of the English language is The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language. Unlike that illiterate Webster, who butchered the Kings English with grievous misspellings and whose cult still today wreak havoc upon the educated and society. Even the well respected game show Jeopardy uses the renowned Oxford Dictionary of the Kings English.
Nope………… Not trusting in God makes us obsolete!