The Internet has changed us so drastically that it’s difficult to look back and remember a time when it didn’t exist. Years ago, when tragedy struck somewhere in the world, we might hear the news hours or days later while glued to a television screen for glimpses of a reality far removed from us. We could call an advertised phone number and read them our credit card number, or write out a check, address its envelope, lick its stamp and send a little contribution to assist those in need.

No longer.

The Internet has changed us. It has changed how and where we access information and the sheer variety of it.

The first significant use of social media and the Internet during a crisis was during the Mumbai bombings in November 2008. People in the middle of the fray sent in frantic Twitter updates via their mobiles, Flickr became a destination for firsthand photo accounts of the destruction and chaos, and users marked locations of reported bombings on an interactive and collaborative Google Map. First-person accounts are given equal attention with a popular news outlet because they give us access to information quickly and we accept its rawness because we hunger for the content.

Now with the Haiti earthquake, we are ready. When misfortune falls, interested parties can watch news scroll in from all over the world (Google “Haiti earthquake” to get a live action example in the search results), they can sign up to receive immediate updates via email or on their mobile, or elect to follow a special Twitter list with updates set up by NPR or the Huffington Post. They can consult a number of news websites, watch the Wikipedia entry get updated as new stories come in and are added to the panorama, or they can look for videos being uploaded to YouTube by survivors.

The Internet has changed us. It has changed the way we filter and trust information.

When television was the primary source of news information we placed a high level of trust in those few channels, the stories they selected and the sources they consulted. Many eyeballs were watching, questioning, and in many cases, contesting the accuracy of those stories.

Now, instead of waiting passively for the television to give us the answer, now we are hunters. We hunt for information, with a voracious appetite for recent and up-to-date information.

The Internet has given us access to such a wide breadth of information and from such a variety of sources that inevitably fewer eyeballs are looking at exactly the same information at the same time. More likely, we are consulting similar information from a variety of sources, and assembling our own panorama from sources we personally know and trust.

Fewer questions are being asked in some cases exactly because we have so many other choices, and some news are therefore never contested. We have to have better judgment when reading through eyewitness accounts, when considering points of view on a news story or when looking for the “truth.”

We also need filters more than ever – what is trustworthy? How do we measure credibility? Especially in times of crisis, when people are emotional and desperate to help or believe, hoaxes can spread like wildfire, like the UPS shipping free to Haiti hoax or rumors about free flights.

In both cases, these hoaxes could have been easily avoided if the users had first filtered the information by checking the mentioned companies’ websites before passing on the “news.” The companies involved would have clearly stated their intentions (they wouldn’t miss out on the PR opportunity if it was true!) Luckily other news sources quickly stepped in to disprove the validity of these claims.

The Internet has changed us. It has changed how we react.

We are no longer observers. Now we are participants.

Within hours of the earthquake in Haiti, Twitter and Facebook was abuzz with news of the earthquake, and people immediately started asking “How can we help?”

The answer came quickly and strongly: in many ways! Websites, Facebook groups, mobile phones and even iTunes were put to use immediately to collect aid money, to spread the word amongst social groups, and to provide accurate information about how individuals could help and what exactly they would be supporting.

The ability to inform oneself, to get emotionally and monetarily involved in a cause through a trustworthy environment and to measure your immediate impact is a powerful thing.

How will you react to Haiti?

• CNN has a complete list of all the organizations helping the Haitians
• Donate to Doctors without Borders
• Donate to The Red Cross
• Follow TweetGrid’s Haiti Tweets in real-time