SuperPower: How the internet is changing our lives
For many of us, it's hard to imagine a world without the internet.
I do sometimes pause and reflect how on earth I did my job - and indeed ran my social life - without going online. Was I a different kind of person then? Did I get out and meet people more? Was the pace of life slower? (And as for life without a mobile phone - well that's like contemplating some bygone era now consigned to the history books!
Of course there are many parts of the world which are only now beginning to enjoy the benefits of the web and indeed many others that are yet to have the privilege; we shouldn't forget that only something like a fifth of the world's population is connected.
And let's not forget either that there are costs to being linked across cyberspace. Privacy is threatened, the web can be abused by individuals and governments, and some very dodgy dealing can take place via websites...
All of these aspects of the internet revolution are being examined by the new World Service SuperPower season.Ìý
On this week's programme, our producer Cathy Packe finds out what's in store for us. Aside from Aleks Krotoski's (pictured) flagship four-part series Virtual Revolution, which charts 20 years since the invention of the world wide web, there are plenty of other fascinating programmes in the line-up.
Cathy finds out how the digital revolution is still throwing up new advances for disabled listeners, and how hitherto excluded areas of rural Africa are getting involved via the mobile phone and an initiative from the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Hausa service.
But our main focus on this week's Over To You is the evolving power struggle over the internet between authoritarian regimes and opposition movements. In the latest salvo in the cyber war in Iran, the government is allegedly deploying a crack force of computer experts - the so-called cyber army - to filter and block antagonistic websites and blogs, whilst also pumping out their own propaganda.
We talk to the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, now operating from London after . He tells us about how the internet has become a lifeblood for many people in that country - not just as a way of disseminating information but also enjoying popular culture.
And I meet , an expert on how the internet is transforming life in Iran. As he told me after the interview, the internet is fundamentally altering political discourse in Iran at a hectic pace - so much so that he can't decide where to draw a line in the chronology he's currently writing. Every time he marks out a finishing point, something else significant happens!
But how has it been for you? Has your life been irreversibly changed by the internet? Or would you like it to be, if you're not yet able to get connected? Is the world a better a place for it? Or is it just another means of communication at the disposal of a human race, still bent on pursuing its same short-sighted agenda?
Big thoughts, personal anecdotes - whichever, we want to hear from you.
Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You
Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and
its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý
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