CNN.com has just interviewed futurist Alex Steffen about the effects of the Internet.

He suggests that people are using it to connect, talk, share information ... "something that the (...) Internet experts of the last generation didn't really anticipate".

Is the Internet the future of democracy ?

CNN: It doesn't sound like the Internet that a lot of people imagine.

AS: It's something that the people who are most famous as Internet experts of the last generation didn't really anticipate: that most people don't want to stay in their little cubicles and play Internet games all night. Most people want to get dates, buy presents more easily or meet up with their friends and family -- "Where can I go to get the business of life done more efficiently and be more like the person I want to be?"

[Snip ...]

CNN: When did people first use the Internet as a campaigning tool?

AS: The most notable examples, although people didn't comment on them at the time, were the anti-war protests at the beginning of the second Iraq war. All over the world, enormous numbers of people got together to protest the idea of that war. That was done almost entirely with online advocacy. Most of the people putting together those protests were tiny little groups that really didn't have the budget to do it in the normal way -- sending out lots of flyers, having people build phone trees. This time round, it was Web sites, e-mails and text messages, and lots of people talking.

CNN: What sort of an impact do you think the Internet had on those protests?

AS: I don't think those protests could have happened the way they happened before those tools were available.

However, it's an intermediate step, not least because it showed that protests of that sort -- a bunch of people using new technologies to go hold signs together -- are not as effective as they need to be, because essentially the President of the United States of America could say, "I don't care."

CNN: So what do you think the next step would be?

AS: We're still figuring out what the next step is. I think we're going to start to see a new model of civic advocacy where people get together once in a while to protest, but it's more about an ongoing, sustained engagement in issues, networks and communities about which people care. We're already seeing the beginnings of it.

There's this great phrase, "continuous partial attention," to describe what people do online. They look at a little thing here, a little thing there, and they keep track of it all. It's the ultimate multi-tasking in our brains.

We're going to see the Internet facilitate continuous partial attention more and more for local issues, for political issues, for community events, for things happening in your social network. We will find that's a great deal more attention than people previously paid with these things.

While it's still in the early days, when it really comes to fruition it's really going to change everything.

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