In my assignment I have to either go with Nathaniel Hawthorne in his thoughts that the internet is evil or go with Vannevar Bush and think it is the best thing in the world. I can't really go with either man but if pushed hard I would probably go with Hawthorne.
The internet has some very good things to offer the world, but at the same time it is not so universally offered. One thing the internet can't boast is cheap. I pay about $60 a month for high speed DSL hook up. Which is a complet rip off. On top of paying $720 a year, I go out and buy a new computer. Now I donot fit the average american that buys an $800 computer every two year, I have managed to make my old computer last me close to four years. That is $7,200 spent on internet hook up over ten years plus the cost of the computers another $4000 which equals $11,200! I could buy a pretty decent car for that.
Another fact the internet boasts is information. I believe that there is too much information and this is worse for us more than ever. We live in a wacked out society where any information that can be found on someone can be used in some hanous way to hurt them. On the internet today without too much work you can find just about anything about a person that you want. Go to the county website where the person lives and you can see the morgage and deed to their house. Then go to the zoning site and you can see the floor plan to the very house you now have a copy of the deed to. How is any of this information helpful to any normal person? For the most part it isn't, but somebody out there will find a way to use it to do something bad.
The internet is on the verge of making americans lazy...wait nevermind it already has. Nobody ever leaves the house anymore, we can do our grocery shoping, clothes shoping all online. Hell now we can even meet the love of our lives on the internet, why should we ever leave our houses? We can find all kinds of information online today about any topic we can think of, the only problem is that we have no idea whether it is real information or if it has been put up there by some pysco. Before you had to go to the library and look up all your information in a book that was published. So you atleast new it was read by one profecional...the printer. Then depending on who published it and how many people said something about it you could determine the legitamacy of the content with common sence. But the internet anyone could say anything and then say that whoever agrees with them. There is very little way to determine if they are telling the truth or not.
I also believe that the internet is killing the english language. I have for many years refused to used any of the slang chat words like lol or a/s/l. I see more and more comercials on tv using these slang terms for advertisements. These advertisements always start out the same with an explenation of what the acrinym means at the bottom of the screen, but the other day I saw an advertisment for a cell phone company that didn't give any explenation. I believe this is destroying our ways of communicating. In the far out future will there be some Shakespear writing a new love sonnet "Romeo! Romeo! WTF Romeo?" I don't find it cute or romantic or particularly easy to read or write.
Another problem about the internet is it is killing our ability to talk to eachother face to face. Yes like 3 in every 8 marriages was started online, but 4 out of 8 end in divorce. You can meet as many people as you would like online, but if you do not develop the social skills of talking face to face then how are you going to sustain any of these relationships that you are starting up? you can't. Everyone is too afraid to talk to the person sitting next to them because they are affraid of being rejected. GET OVER IT! Our grandparents had to meet like that, our parents also and for the most part most of my generation will have met most of their friends like that. But what about the generation after mine? Will they be able to deal with eachother face to face. Is this the end of boardroom meetings because everyone is scared of the boss saying no. When two people get in a fight, will they go to seperate rooms in there house so they can log onto the internet and fight in a private chat room? How will they express wheither they are being sarcastic? WILL THIS SIGNIFY YELLING, or begging in their conversations? Will we keep developing acrynms so we know what we are trying to say or will itallics become the new BOLD? Either way I think its a crock of shit. People need to learn how to talk to eachother and get over their timidness.
In the end I know it may sound like I hate the internet, I do not. I just believe that people need to chill out on it. It is not magical, you will probably not be able to find the elixor of life or your soul mate. I do not believe it will bring america to its knees, but it is not helping us either.
