flux; noun:
1 : a flowing of fluid from the body
2 : a continuous moving on or passing by (as of a stream)
3 : a continued flow : flood
4 a : influx b : change, fluctuation <in a state of flux>
5 : a substance used to promote fusion (as of metals or minerals); especially : one (as rosin) applied to surfaces to be joined by soldering, brazing, or welding to clean and free them from oxide and promote their union
6 : the rate of transfer of fluid, particles, or energy across a given surface
(Merriam-Webster)
The causal relationship between society and the internet is somewhat more complicated than previous models of organizing knowledge. The key difference between the internet and the book, or perhaps it is more appropriately a library, as a means of storing information, comes down to what we might term “flux”. That is, the levels of permanence between the internet, and nearly any other means of recording information, is almost the opposite. Books are essentially permanent repositories of their contents, of which revision is impossible, aside from physically manipulation or destruction. Books are also “hardware” to the internet’s software. The internet, by design, represents a continuously changing and flowing digital body of information. It can be labeled as distinctly intensive, in Deleuzian terminology, and can be likewise compared to body of energy with constantly shifting entropy. Individual components of the internet, websites, are designed to be edited, revised, or reformatted; to change constantly. Thus is the nature of the medium.
The amount of flux or the rate of change is directly determined as a result of interaction between humans and the internet itself; how much or how little, location, time, amount of time, etc. (This relationship exists in some form in the relationship between readers and publishers though with far more in between) Not unusually, the most successful websites on the internet are generally those that allow simple access to the largest variety of information, i.e. search engines. In fact, they’ve been the most popular websites on the internet for more than a decade now. Many of these sites have branched out over time in an attempt to become an all inclusive portal for the rest of the web and the rest of our lives, including email services and other associated applications. The most successful sites tend to be those that transcend the medium and become a tool for the rest of our lives. Social networking sites are one such example, as they can exist in no other medium and are unique tools that naturally give us access to information normally found outside the internet. This might be termed informal information, which the internet is ideal for cataloguing and propagating.
Social networking sites are so popular because they constantly contain new information and hence encourage frequent visits by patrons. There content is user generated by nature and all owners need to worry about is maintenance and interface. User generated content is not new nor is the idea of “open source” software development. Open source content, aside from undermining capitalism and any Fordist system, encourages creativity and implies that people will do things because they want to, rather than because they’re paid to. In many cases, user generated content is developed on the same level as that which is professionally developed (Apple’s App Store is a good example of this). Open source content also allows a wider range of people to contribute and interact on a deeper level with the net. Essentially, the internet represents societal changes and shifts, but how closely those shifts are represented is dependant levels of interaction. A deeper level of interaction by a greater number of individuals means that society and the internet will more closely align.
