Midterm Blog--What I learned from Wikipedia

 I personally don’t believe that Wikipedia should be used as a scholarly source.  I think that Wikipedia is a good place to go for quick, basic information, and that it’s a great place to start when looking for more information on a topic.  However, I think that if scholarly information is sought, further research needs to take place.  I would further investigate the sources of information used in the Wikipedia entry itself, and look through the citations and choosing those that are most relevant to my study.

While I believe that Wikipedia has more strengths than weaknesses, the weaknesses are great and can't be ignored.  Its strengths are that it is free, and easily available to anyone, anytime, 24/7.  All you need is an internet connection.  It’s easy to look something up on Wikipedia—anything, really.  There’s no need to schlep to the library to look through an encyclopedia.  You can usually find up-to-date information on Wikipedia, and often, with current events, articles are entered almost immediately.   Anyone can write an article, contribute to an article, or edit an article.  (These are both strengths and weaknesses).

The weaknesses of Wikipedia are that the information on there is only as good and reliable as the authors and their references.   It is not perfect, and there are errors on there.   The content is not 100 percent reliable.    The fact that anyone can edit an entry on Wikipedia is both a blessing and a curse.  There are people out there who will anonymously add erroneous information, promote their own personal agenda, or sabotage an entry for whatever reason.  

Technology will continue to provide us with greater access to needed information, but we always need to be on our toes.  We cannot let ourselves trust everything we read, 100 percent.  Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s true or correct.   Human relationships can be affected by technology in many ways.   In this day and age, people often prefer to communicate via email or text, rather than by making a phone call.  In addition, cyber relationships are very common, and “real life” relationships can suffer because of the online ones.  One can weave a very tangled web if they’re not careful!  I read something online a few weeks ago, and I think that Michael Barkey from the Washington Post summed it all up nicely when he said, “Humans are blessed with the power to make choices for themselves. How each of us chooses to respond to new opportunities depends wholly upon the values we seek to promote in our lives. People are what define a community and information technology is only another tool to help express who we are.”