On Monday morning (2 May 2011) I was talking to my younger sister, who was also on Facebook at the same time. Suddenly she said, “Did you know bin Laden is dead?” I’ll admit, I was a bit sceptical, knowing that news sites are not her usual haunt on the internet. “No, really, it’s all over Facebook.” And that was how I too learnt about the death of Osama bin Laden. Not through the radio, or TV, or any type of news site, but through Facebook posts. (more…)

The internet has only really been around for most people for less than 20 years, yet its impact on the world has been immense. What follows are five ways the internet has changed the world.

Communication

Remember the days when you had to pick up a piece of paper and a pen in order to write to someone? And then you would have to go through the process of putting the letter in an envelope, stamping it and taking it to a post office to send. All this, and the card you sent for Christmas would invariably arrive sometime around Easter…

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A couple of years ago, my mom peered over my sister’s shoulder and read the message on her phone. “Lol? Who is lolling you? Is that some kind of rude word?”

With e-mail, instant messaging, facebook, twitter and SMSs or text messages, a new form of writing has emerged. Due to the fact that many of these new systems limit the number of characters you can use, people try many different ways to get a meaningful message across in the smallest possible way. This includes substituting numbers for letters, letters for words and numerous misspellings of words in order to try and use fewer characters.

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What is a blog? When I was asked to contribute to this blog, I decided to try to find out what makes a blog a blog. I found so much information, but I also found myself having to sift through a lot of other stuff just to try and narrow down to what I was looking for. (more…)