Has the internet made information easier?
Answers Is the internet good for us? · see how other cities answered →
One question, put in Nairobi for a hundred-dollar bounty: has the internet made it easier or harder to get at information? The answer separates access from value, and argues the two moved in opposite directions.
“I think the internet has made it easier, but confusing,” he begins. Before, finding something meant scouting massive repositories, libraries, physical copies. Now, with AI embedded in search, “you’re able to get information without necessarily going through the hassle of reading through books.”
Then the turn, which is the interesting part: “With this density of information, the volumes of them being readily accessible means people are not actively trying to understand the information, because it’s at your fingertips. People value information less because it’s now more available.”
On how fast the same pipes move the false version, he reaches for something local and recent: during the Nairobi floods, Red Cross alerts spread because the internet made them spread. “And this does not just happen to information which is meant to educate and inform. It’s also across misinformation, disinformation, information which is meant to slander, to destroy, to ruin. When you go to X right now, you of course know there’s going to be that one random account that will tell you Elon Musk is releasing this coin.”
Filmed by Aziz for a weekly bounty on poidh, picture it or it didn’t happen, where the same question goes to contributors in several countries at once. That format is what One Question grew into.