The web is making you more human

In the beginning

I started using the web in 1995.

At the time, I was a teenager with "unorthodox" interests such as gaming, computers, Star Trek and the Monty Pythons, living in a conservative, anglo-phobic country (France)

Needless to say, it wasn't exactly easy to find people who liked the same things.

I started using the web just when we still had those noisy modems, and 56k sounded like very fast. Most of the web then consisted of poorly made corporate pages, people trying to feed you content.
Very soon, I started using IRC and forums. Suddenly, the world was filled with other people like me. And I could talk with them. You couldn't do really much more than talk at the time anyway

The shift

I think the SomethingAwful guy put it really well:
You used to have all these weirdos who liked random things like collecting baby shoes. Now they have a place to get together and talk about whatever they like!

The world got smaller. It was just a start. Soon the web became less techy. Girls would spend their day chatting on MSN, guys would browse for pictures, people would download music, and spy on each other's relationship statuses.

It was in 2001 that Napster became big. In less than a decade, not only music, but videos, and photos all became completely digital. Even phone calls.

Think about it for a second. In less than 10 years, the entire media output of the planet changed, to be usable on a single platform.

Everyone has more content. Everyone is connected. What does it mean?

You are becoming more

The web isn't just a tool, or a method of communication of data. It became much more than that. Within 10 years, you will be always connected with everyone, and their content, and any other content you want. People will be able to know everything you want to say. You will know everything you want to know.

This is a profound change in humanity.

If everybody can follow and judge you, if everybody knows your passions, if you can meet more people like you, if you have access to any information, how will you behave?

It means that social pressure is increasing exponentially. It means that your persona, both socially and online, is becoming more and more like a brand, and it's becoming deeper.

It's making our society more interconnected.
It's bring you new friends, new knowledge, new passions.
It's making you a deeper individual.
More human.