According to the United Nations Agency, more than 3 billion people out of 7 billion around the world utilize the internet. With just a click of a button, those 3 billion people can find an answer to any question they have. “How many people live on Earth?”, or “How many people use the internet?” are just a couple of examples. It only takes Google an average of .30 seconds to retrieve millions and millions of websites with information. However, the half a second search might require a person to spend hours looking for the most credible website. Phillip Lenssen’s image accurately presents the idea that people cannot expect the initial results they receive from a search to be accurate or truthful, and as a result, it can require and promote one…show more content… In the image, the man is questioning the student because he most likely thinks that the student’s information is going to come from one unreliable website the student first clicked on. Although the internet cannot be reliable at first glance, it can provide amazing information once a person can look past the advertisers or distractions, and critical thinking is applied. Even though the story was written in the BC era, Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave can help answer the problem of the internet. In the story, three prisoners have been tied up in a cave, facing a wall since birth only able to see the shadows reflected from a fire behind them. As a result, they believed that the shapes of darkness was reality since it is the only thing they have been exposed to. Socrates uses this story to explain that people are blinded by what they think is the truth, and it could in fact be an illusion. In this case, the unreliable websites and information on the internet are the illusions. One day, one of the prisoners is freed and slowly makes his way out of the cave and he follows the light to the outside and realizes that there is so much more to the world than just shapes and shadows. Socrates explains that “whether true or false, [his opinion] is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort” (Plato 1122). Plato’s words still speak truth in the today’s modern society. People need to find the reliable source and begin to dig deeper if they want to find out the truth. Unlike some researchers who believe that the internet is altering the way people think, critical thinking skills can be applied when searching for credible information on the internet. Plato is trying to say that a person should not accept something as true just because it was the first thing they saw, and one can be exposed
