Internet-Literate Student Skills

An understanding of what the Internet is. "I found it on the Internet" is not an accurate statement. You found it on a computer connected to the World Wide Web. Ways to formulate queries. Typing "childhood obesity" into a search engine is not the best way to discover what health problems are associated with being overweight. Students need to know about Boolean searches, adding prefixes such as SITE and FILETYPE, and more. For example, "site:.edu childhood obesity" will yield search results fr...

 The Internet as a Brain

The brain is one of the most complex networks in the world, with more neurons than there are stars in the galaxy. Its hardware is a complex network of neurons; its software a complex network of memories. And so too is the Internet a network. Its hardware is a complex network of computers; its software a complex network of websites. There is a lot we can learn from the brain and it can tell us where the Internet is headed next. [...] In practice, the Internet is clunkier, slower, and smaller...

 Privacy is Impossible on the Internet

The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him;105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period. [...] Sure, we can take measures to pr...