TEXT I. SURFING THE NET

1. What is more impressive than the pyramids, more beautiful than Michelangelo's David and more important to mankind than the wondrous inventions of the Industrial Revolution? To the converted, there can be only one answer: the Internet that undisciplined radical electronic communications network that is shaping our universe. Multimedia, the electronic publishing revolution, is entering every area of our lives — college, work and home. This new digital technology combines texts, video, sound and graphics to produce interactive language learning, football, music, movies, cookery and anything else you might be interested in.

2. The industrial age has matured into the information age; wherein the means to access, manipulate, and use information has become crucial to success and power. The electronic superhighway provides an entry to libraries, research institutions, databases, art galleries, census bureaus, etc. For those of us interested in intercultural communications Cyberspace is a universal community, with instant access not only to information anywhere, but also to friends old and new around the globe.

3. The Internet is an amorphous global network of thousands of linked computers that pass information back and forth. While the Internet has no government, no owners, no time, no place, no country, it definitely has a culture, which frequently approaches anarchy; and it has a language, which is more or less English. People who interact in an Internet environment know how addresses are formed, how to use e-mail, ftp, Usenet News, Telnet, and other software tools.

4. Like all new worlds, Cyberspace has its own lingo, for example: e-bahn, i-way, online, freenet, web page, freeware, browser, gopher, archie, gateway. There are words to describe people who roam thenet: netters, e-surfers, internet surfers, netizens, spiders, geeks... The Internet has its own prerogatives: for example, the dismissive term lurker for the person who hangs around the net, reading what is there but not contributing anything. The term flaming refers to the public humiliation of another netter as punishment for a real or imagined transgression against net culture.

5. Large-scale use of computer-to-computer transfer of information was implemented by the US military in the late 60s and early 70s - part of the superpower competition of the cold war and the arms race. The US military created an electronic network (Arpanet) to use computers for handling the transfer of large amounts of sensitive data over long distances at incredible speed. Computer-to-computer virtual connections, using satellites and fiber optics, have distinct advantages over telephone or radio communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Mathematicians and scientists (and their universities) have been linked and electronically exchanging information over the Internet since the mid-70s.

6. Now the Internet has become commercialized with private and public companies offering access to it. (CompuServe — is the best-known international commercial electronic access provider). The Internet is being expanded and improved so that every home, every school, every institution can be linked to share data, information, music, video and other resources. If you have a computer or a computer terminal, some kind of connection (probably, modem and telephone line) to the Internet, and some kind of Internet service provider, you can participate in electronic communication and become a citizen of the global village.

7. Information technology is a good vehicle for the argument. Some scientists remind us that voluminous information does not necessarily lead to sound thinking. There are many genuine dangers that computers bring to modern society: efficient invasion of privacy, overreliance on polling in politics, even abdication of control over military decision-making. Data glut obscures basic questions of justice and purpose and may even hinder rather than enhance our productivity; Edutainment software and computer games degrade the literacy of children. On the other hand, only a few use PCs on network to share information and ideas. In most cases IT is used to speed routine tasks, to automate manual processes rather than to change work patterns and business practices. Most managers use their PCs to edit documents — not a good use of their time when they could be dreaming up creative applications. It is time to evaluate anew the role of science and technology in the affairs of the human species.

8. So, if you are riding on the information highway, you should take steps to cope with information overload. The gift of boundless information is causing a new kind of stress known alternately as technostress, information overload or Information Fatigue Syndrome. Some experts say that we don't get anywhere near the data it takes to overload our neurons. According to some estimates, our mind is capable of processing and analyzing many gigabytes of data per second — a lot more data than any of today's supercomputers can process and act on in real time. We feel overloaded by the quantity of information because we are getting it unfiltered. We should filter out the junk and turn data into shapes that make sense to us. Stress in moderation is good: it drives us to achieve, stimulates our creativity and is the force behind social and technological breakthroughs. Stress is revealing how humans are in some ways more primitive than the technology they have created. Meditation, muscular relaxation, aerobics, jogging, yoga can be effective stress relievers, but no technique is universal: experiment and find the one that best works for you.

9. The cornerstone of an economy are land, labor, capital and entrepreneurial spirit. That traditional definition is now being challenged. Today you find a fifth key economic element: information dominant. As we evolve from an industrial to an information society, our jobs are changing from physical to mental labor. Just as people moved physically from farms to factories in the Industrial age, so today people are shifting muscle power to brain power in a new, computer-based, globally linked by the Internet society.