There was a time in which information finding on the web was difficult, exhausting, frustrating, and indeed succeeding, a miracle. The most of us woke up to a web in which Google already existed, the search engine that made the world a smaller place, however, the information present on the web was far less than it is nowadays so, although there was a great tool to find exactly what we want, rarely that information was even present on this world wide system. Times changed, the information amount is not just more, is huge. If the users of the old times had to deal with frustration of not finding what they wanted because it just was not there, the users of today have information at a distance of a click, but there is just so much and it is all so easy they simply don't bother making the difference if what they get is really what they want.

 

This is something I noticed a while a go, but got reminded in a intro of a João Martin's post. In that intro he shows he's quite annoyed with the fact that a major part of the comments made to another of his blog posts about a portuguese project called Magalhães (which will deliver netbooks to 6 to 10 year olds kids in Portugal) where of people asking questions that should be rather asked on the (un)official website of the project or would there be successfully solved.  I and a couple of friends of mine suffered of exactly the same thing (even worse) in a joint blog where one day we publicize a portuguese project that built a platform that made easy the acquisition of used school books. The post was simple, just a brief note about the project (linking to the official website) and our votes for its successfulness. After roughly one year of existence, that blog post summed 24 comments in 28, from people asking about the availability of some books that they needed, some complaining about the site, and even some replying back to others saying they indeed had those books and could make a deal, this all in a blog that had nothing to do with the project, having a blog post that clearly pointed out this was not something of our own, and being the 3rd comment a message trying to clear that out for the users. While I was seeing the comments counter rise more and more with always the same kind of message, I could only wonder what was the matter with the users of the web, which, in that case, were behaving exactly like spam bots, with the difference that they just wanted that someone doesn't matter who, from somewhere doesn't matter where, could give them the answer to their problems the fastest possible and with the smallest effort from their part needed.

This is not really a problem of Internet literacy, it's just a problem of education, of people don't being used to read, don't being used to correctly understand a text's message, and a problem of the generation and of the society: nowadays it's all too easy. Kids, teenagers, the adults they will be and their parents, live and lived in a society were nothing really challenging is put to them as a barrier they have to cross. It's all immediate, fast, easy, and it's sad when we see even our portuguese government's education ministry aiming towards that same easiness that somewhat reflects itself in all these little details that nobody cares about, but say a great thing about who we are.