The first few times I encountered Wikipedia.com was in the fall of 2005. At that time, I was not sure what to make of it. It did not seem to be very well put together and looked sort of unprofessional to me. I remember searching for some obscure subjects for a high school speech, and the only place that seemed to contain any information was Wikipedia. I was a bit surprised that it actually even contained articles related to my subject. I choose to find material at other sources because it did not seem like something that could be trusted with my grade.

Now, 4 years later, I think Wikipedia has come a long way. I still would probably not trust it with my grade for a class, but I find myself constantly crawling back to that site for general knowledge information. For instance, if I want to find a famous person’s birthday or some of their accomplishments, there is no better source. All the information is right before me in a very easy to read format that filters out a lot of the fluff compared to other websites.

I remember in my First Year Seminar class, my professor instructed us to never use Wikipedia for any of our papers. He cited several sources of erroneous information that appeared as fact on the site. Most of them are not serious and are typically seen as a joke, but others stem from actually misinformation. Here are a few websites with errors contained in Wikipedia at one time or another. Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

Apart from some of the discrepancies in the content, Wikipedia really is an amazing concept. People from all over the world are able to give their input on a specific topic. This is a place where you do not just get one view of a subject—many people can give their view or a person, event, or object. Friedman was correct in asserting that this is one of the ways the earth has been flattened in the past several decades.

I like to watch The Office, and one of my favorite quotes involves Wikipedia. Steve Carrel’s character says in an interview why he likes Wikipedia so much.


Of course, this is meant to be a joke; however, it is the way some people view the site. I do not think it should be used for primary research, but rather as a source of guidance.

The example of Wikipedia is one of several that Friedman uses to assert the world is flat. However, there are many other websites that offer equally flattening experiences. Youtube, for instance, allows users to upload videos from anywhere in the world. This gives me, as an American, to see a clip from the life of someone in a different part of the world. I can see how a group of European teenagers spends their free time, and I could also see someone’s videos from their African Safari.

Another site that I believe contributed to a flat world is Facebook. I have friends from all over the world. If I wanted to find out what is happening in a specific place, there are only a few keystrokes away. I remember a year ago hearing news coverage of a story in Dubai. I was interested in learning more about it, so I asked one of my friends who is from there and got the rest of the story.

The world is definitely becoming flatter as the years go on. The Internet is a major contributor to that, in my opinion and in Friedman’s. As more websites pop up that allow people to voice their opinions and experiences, we will learn more about other people’s view of the world.