To my fellow Gen Y and Gen Z

MY world prior to the Internet was relatively small. I knew nothing beyond what I was told and taught both at home and in school; the world that I knew was what I read in books and newspaper, watched and heard on television and radio.

Enter the Internet era. I stared wide-eyed at the greater world on the World Wide Web as an adolescent. My weekly rendezvous with the beige-coloured desktop computer (also known as beige-box personal computer) before me became a gateway to the world.

Little did I imagine that I will one day be able to access the Internet through a mobile device. Everything became much more easily accessible, in my palms. But just how much about the world do we know about? And how much do we know are factual information? How do we aggregate and curate the information we find on the Internet?

More than a decade and a half after my first World Wide Web experience, I have more or less acquired a better sense of how to navigate the sea of information on the Internet.

The Internet is not only the home of countless adorable cat videos, styling tutorial or gaming tips and the whole euphoria of “how-to”s. It is akin to a growing digital encyclopaedia which holds a multitude of information that can be attained instantaneously.

However, it sometimes comes at the expense of accuracy when a Netizen is unable to differentiate between facts and rumours. The trick is to take a little more time to do several rounds of fact-checking to verify the authenticity of a news or information.

What we often see is that rumours tend to become widely circulated in a short span of time. Taking rumours for fact without proper verification, hinders one from forming an informed opinion about the state of the world.

With a smart device in hand, all of us have the freedom to participate in public discourse on topics that we deeply cared for. More importantly, we should also recognise that since we have an equal opportunity to accessing information along with the rest of the Internet population, there is no time to rest on our laurels. If possible, read up on topics that is out of your typical scope of interest. Get to know more. Stay informed.

Our future, better selves will thank us for that.