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February 13th, 2025

Kate Wagner’s AI and Internet Hygiene is a reflective piece written for her own blog The Late Review, in this work she discusses the ways the internet has been used throughout her own childhood and the changes it has faced in contemporary times. The switch to a “platformized, app-driven Internet” matched with the rise of the smartphone has resulted in a change, from the majority of users having a basic understanding of their operating systems, to being increasingly subservient to handhelds, without understanding their innerworkings. We can use our phones, but only to the extent to which the corporations producing them want us too, gone now are the ways of tech having a extent of physical control, and now, like Wagner’s description in her article 404 Page not Found talking on “the hell of beautiful landscapes” the DIY-vibe of old tech is now out of style. All this to say, we use our phones, but do we understand them? Thinking back on our blog’s first post How the Internet was Invented, do we really have control over this technological entity which has grown to an extension of ourselves, if we do not understand it?

AI…

AI as discussed in Wagner’s article was a premature unleashing. The spread of AI onto the internet is undoubtedly an epoch-making event that has catapulted us into a new era, things now can be categorized in BCE or CE-esque terms, as AI has fundamentally switched the ways we live online. It has differentiated itself from what could be considered ‘traditional tech’ mainly as the human element of production has all but been erased. Pre-AI we were taught online navigational skills on how to see if an article was biased or not, if it provided false information, now we must ask whether a person even is behind the screen.

… and Internet Hygiene

One term defined in Kate Wagner’s text is the idea of ‘internet hygiene’ also called cyber hygiene, I would like to take this next section to briefly define it. Internet hygiene is the practice of cleaning up messes made on computer systems, running antivirus software, rebooting, and uninstalling harmful programs. It is also preventative and works as the everyday practice of regular safety checks, recognizing harmful sites, and having a general understanding of how to use the internet in ways which keeps your data safe. Internet hygiene can be equated to personal hygiene, as you maintain your health through everyday routines like showering and brushing your teeth, you maintain your devices health by avoiding suspicious links, and understanding how to clean up viruses.

Yet it can be questioned, if this is a valuable comparison, or another bad metaphor. Should we be relating our tech so continuously to the human? Shouldn't internet hygiene be to check in and log off and not be instead equated to repetition acts which are essential to our livelihood? The metaphor holds meaning, and the practice of internet safety is of the utmost importance when online, yet the wording itself can be called into question.

"You see, back in the days before total market saturation, the big tech companies had an incentive to educate. They couldn’t sell a technology people were so intimidated by."

New Wave Media Literacy

The Internet has changed. This isn’t a malicious statement, it changes every day, but it must be addressed that as it changes, our practises of navigating it have to as well. Wagner talks about this in connection to internet hygiene, as AI and large language models (LLMs) take over the internet, we must begin to re-skill tech users to use this next wave of technology. The practices we utilize need to address the growing concerns of false AI generated information. We need to understand what the internet looks like in its new space. The effects of misuse used to be malware, a virus, email spam, what is it now?

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