Just because it is on the internet doesn't make it so

In the past the only way people were subjected to "news" or opinions were through the TV, newspaper or the water cooler at work. The nice thing about these mediums were you could turn off, ignore or avoid them if you didn't agree or didn't care about it.

In today's society the Internet is the ruling form of media for almost everyone. The problem with this is any idiot can put forth their opinion and push it out everywhere and there is little to no recourse if they are wrong or just plain ignorant of the facts (yes I see the irony of posting about this on the internet). With blogs, Facebook, Twitter and open forums on every website it has come down to the point where anyone with a computer and access to the Internet can put their opinion out there and can even call it fact if they want to. Society is at the point now where there is very little, if any, intelligent conversations that happen over the Internet when it comes to open forums such as Twitter or Facebook or even if you go to your favourite sports site and see all the comments below a story. People hide behind the anonimity of the Internet and say things that they would never say to you in person or if they did would probably end up getting in to a fist fight and then it would be over. The problem with this is there is no ending to it. People continue to squabble over things making rude comments back and forth to each other and the conversation becomes more heated and more useless.

So how do we change this? There are two ways in reality, remove open forums (not going to happen) or people need to grow up and either not post inflamatory things or if you see it don't engage the person.

Arguing with people on the internet will not enhance your life in any way and in fact will probably end up causing you more stress than it needs to. I constantly go on sport sites, forums, Twitter and Facebook and all the while I try not to engage people. Sometimes I get sucked into it but as I get older I realize that it just isn't worth it and I refrain from posting and just bite my tougue.

I will end it off with something I heard years ago when the Internet was first starting (this will probably make some people angry) "Fighting on the Internet and winning is like being the smartest kid in the dumb class, you are still in the dumb class, you have nothing to be proud of."