The Virtual Revolution - 1. The Great Levelling?

Dr Aleks Krotoski researches the history of the internet in this documentary, and interviews some of the web's biggest names; from the creators of Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia.
She wants to find out whether technological advances in our society have been a blessing, or a curse.
The internet has created wealth yet allows others to work for nothing.
We've seen the rise of web addicts and obesity.
We benefited from the industrial revolution, but now we have now begun the journey into the virtual revolution; how will we change technologically 10 years from now and what will it do to our society?

She first interviews the man who invented the internet some 30 years ago, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
In the documentary he comes across as a nice guy; gaining no profit from the formation of the internet allowing the internet to be freely accessed by all users.
However, watching the documentary, there's a sense of Frankenstein creating a monster.
Looking back, the internet has allowed streams of information to be passed around the globe without anyone's knowledge or permission.
There are good sides and bad sides to the internet.
The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia is a perfect example of how the internet can overpower us. People can upload information about anything and edit any posts they believe to be false.
Effectively, you can create your own opinion for everyone to see.

However, the internet has also allowed faith movements to be pushed into the mainstream.
Ory Okollah is the founder of Ushahidi ( meaning witness is Swahili). The site allows people to report attacks through a blog; a voice of the people.
And a farmer in Ghana uses the internet to see how he can get his crops to grow more effectively and better his produce, to further his income.

As Berners-Lee receives no profit from his creation, opposition Bill Gates takes an entirely different route.
As creator of Microsoft and Internet Explorer, he boosted profits of his company, by selling computers already installed with Internet Explorer software, resulting in 90% of Microsoft's market profit.

Some of the statistics are very interesting to see throughout this documentary.
Did you know that YouTube receives 2 billion hits daily?
Or that Google receives 800million searches a month?

The internet has allowed us to access information quickly and simply, the world it at our fingertips as we type into search engines and view the results.
We view the world differently now as we know about celebrities when they don't know about us, we can research far away countries that have never heard of England and we receive no consequential actions. It's a playground for the inquisitive.



Reflection
The documentary neither shocked me nor informed me of anything i didn't know.
True, i didn't know the real statistics of the internet searches but neither was i particularly interested.
The documentary seemed to lack engagement, not helped by Dr Krotoski's voice.
I don't mean to diminish her presenting skills; she's rather good at it, but i was bored watching and listening to her.
As she interviewed the founders of the sites she spoke about, she would say their name then a few minutes later their name would appear, so you would loose information about them while trying to write down their name.
Dr Krotoski spoke too fast and her monotonous voice didn't leave an impression on my mind.


Unfortunately i didn't like the documentary, but it was interesting to critique a show i wouldn't normally consider watching, and i have gained skills and information for myself on how to present a documentary or even narrate one.