"Lost in Cyberspace" John Skow

I always have trouble trying to navigate myself across the treacherous waters of Google's search engine. While looking for research material on any given topic or author, I usually, with the help of Google, find some legitimate sites. However, more than often, a majority of those sites look like they have been thrown together by a college student with pink angels flying in the background and synthesized music to go along with their findings. Therefore, it is easy to question the accuracy of many of these websites.

John Skow in his essay, "Lost in Cyberspace" makes some practical observations while investigating the scary realms of the World Wide Web. His main concern is quite sincere and understandable: there are good sites out there, but more than likely, we may not be finding them. And if we do, it may take us quite a few Google trips to reach a solid destination. Skow says some of the reasons being is our inability not to just take a web site for its outer-appearance. Skow writes, "Yet doing research on the Internet is like taking a two-year-old for a walk. Pretty pebbles and deeply meaningful small sticks present themselves, but enlightenment seldom proceeds in a straight line" (240). Just like people and books, it cannot be judged by its outside cover.

In fact, we could be landing on a site that may finally answer our question, however, if it takes longer than three minutes to load---forget about it. Three minutes in the internet world is like waiting for 1.5 dog years or 20 human years. Certainly, no one wants to waste their time waiting for a site to load. Instead, we keep clicking hoping that we will somehow come across some valuable and insightful information.

Or perhaps we do come across a site that is low-funded and does not have all the high-tech graphics and videos to support every story. Right away, many people will figure that the website is just not good enough. They will put it in the same category as the college student's pink background with pixel-looking angels flying around. However, according to Skow, "...virtual power, not real size, is often what's important" (241). Therefore, perhaps we should take a double look at the website that was not professionally done. It could give us more information than we thought.

Skow's points become a rude-awakening for many Google travelers. We must learn to look cautiously and judge after investigating the site for more than two seconds. There may be a secret hidden treasure amongst all those simplistic features. However, I think the most important part about internet-surfing is to try and find web sites based from organizations, charities, and places where people know their stuff because it's how they make their pay check every Friday. Indeed, this would perhaps be the best piece of advice I could personally give throughout my years of experience. As the wise Skow puts it, "Run barefoot through its meadows, but be careful where you put your feet" (243). Explore past the outer-appearance of that website, but use a careful eye while reading information.

Oh, the woes of the internet. Magellan has no idea what we conquistadors must try to sift through to find our treasure.