Kai Lin/Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has made our lives more convenient. In the past, the usual means of getting information was through print media, the television and possibly the radio. Now, a vast and mostly-free pool of resources is available on the internet, and we can all access it with just the click of a button. The internet provides users with easy-to-use tools such as search engines to access facts and figures whereas traditional media does not allow us to have specific questions answered and trying to do so would take much more effort and time. Examples would be the search engine giants Google and Yahoo. However, some would argue that new media is unreliable because some of its content is user-generated. The popular, free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia is one such example. As long as information is properly-worded, anyone reading the professional-sounding text can be fooled into believing that those are facts when in reality are made up by others. However, whether or not the false information on the internet is used depends on the user. With rising levels of education, people have the ability to decide for themselves if the information is credible. Also, search engines allow for multiple sources of information to be displayed on the same page, allowing users to cross-refer to confirm before believing the information presented. Therefore, as long as we are careful enough, new media will make our lives more convenient.