The Never-Betters, The Better-Nevers and The Ever Wasers

Gopnik, Adam. “The Information – How the Internet gets inside us.”
The New Yorker. 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

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Writing in The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik discusses the impact the internet has had on our culture. In his article, “The Information-How the Internet gets inside us,” Gopnik says books have been written expressing three different viewpoints. He says the Never-Betters think the world is better off since the coming of the internet; they believe “that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves. The Better-Nevers think we were better off in the old days before the internet; “that the world that is coming to an end is superior to the one that is taking its place.” The Ever-Wasers says that there has always been something like this going on and there always will be. For instance, everyone thought that television would be the downfall of society, and now everyone thinks the internet will bring us down. Gopnik’s point of vew in this argument is that these external machines do not make us what we are; that it is “ our consciousness that makes our credos, and we mostly live by those.”

Gopnik begins his article by alluding to the Harry Potter books. Because the setting for these books is in the 1990’s before the days of Google, the wizard is doing research by working in the stacks in the library. The present generation of kids thinks this is terribly old-fashioned; they ask, “Why doesn’t she just Google it?” In addition to Harry Potter, Gopnik uses many historical and literary allusions to show how the gathering of information has evolved over time. Gopnik argues that the feelings that humans once held in check because they would cause embarrassment are now unleashed through the internet. He comments that everything that was once said about television is now being said about the internet. Gopnik believes that the internet can be used for good or for evil; it is up to the user to decide. Gopnik says the impact on our culture will be in the “small changes in mood, life, manners, feelings” that the internet creates.