The trend toward rationality and enlightenment was endangered long before the advent of the World Wide Web. As Neil Postman noted in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, the rise of television introduced not just a new medium but a new discourse: a gradual shift from a typographic (印刷的) culture to a photographic one, which in turn meant a shift from rationality to emotions, exposition to entertainment. In an image-centered and pleasure-driven world, Postman noted, there is no place for rational thinking, because you simply cannot think with images. It is text that enables us to “uncover lies, confusions and overgeneralizations, and to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another.”

        The dominance of television was not confined to our living rooms. It overturned all of those habits of mind, fundamentally changing our experience of the world, affecting the conduct of politics, religion, business, and culture. It reduced many aspects of modern life to entertainment, sensationalism, and commerce. “Americans don’t talk to each other, we entertain each other,” Postman wrote. “They don’t exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions, they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

          At first, the web seemed to push against this trend. When it emerged towards the end of the 1980s as a purely text-based medium, it was seen as a tool to pursue knowledge, not pleasure. Reason and thought were most valued in this garden—all derived from the project of the Enlightenment. Universities around the world were among the first to connect to this new medium, which hosted discussion groups, informative personal or group blogs, electronic magazines, and academic mailing lists and forums. It was an intellectual project, not about commerce or control, created in a scientific research center in Switzerland. And for more than a decade, the web created an alternative space that threatened television’s grip on society.

         Social networks, though, have since colonized the web for television’s values. From Facebook to Instagram, the medium refocuses our attention on videos and images, rewarding emotional appeals—‘like’ buttons—over rational ones. Instead of a quest for knowledge, it engages us in an endless zest (热情) for instant approval from an audience, for which we are constantly but unconsciously performing. (It’s telling that, while Google began life as a PhD thesis, Facebook started as a tool to judge classmates’ appearances.) It reduces our curiosity by showing us exactly what we already want and think, based on our profiles and preferences. The Enlightenment’s motto (座右铭) of ‘Dare to know’ has become ‘Dare not to care to know’.

解析：C。文章第一段开头出现World Wide Web，在第三段中又出现web（即World Wide Web），根据题文同序原则，可定位至原文第三段。该段第一句提到，起初，网络似乎与这种趋势方向相反。接着第二句进行解释：20世纪80年代末，网络的出现是以纯文本为基础，它被视为追求知识而不是娱乐的工具。由此可知，万维网在20世纪80年代出现时最初是作为追求知识的工具，C项与此内容相符，其中means是该句中tool的同义替换，quest for对应该句中pursue，knowledge原词复现，故C项为正确答案。需要注意本题难点是找准定位句，根据World Wide Web很容易定位在第一段，在快速浏览，结合选项无法得出正确答案的情况下，应该定位在同样出现web的第三段。

错项排除：第三段第四句提到，世界各地的大学是最早一批接触到这一新型媒介（new medium）的，根据前文可知，new medium指的就是万维网，所以说万维网是世界各地的大学首先接触到的，并不是为其开发的，故A项排除。B项利用第三段第四句的connect和最后一句的created进行拼凑，D项利用第四句中University、discussion和forums进行拼凑，但文中并没有提到万维网建立是为了将不同国家的人连接起来，或是为了给大学生设计一个讨论论坛，故B、D两项排除。