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The positive power of the internet
Living in the e-world; loving that internet thing.
I don’t think many people could have imagined this ‘internet thing’ taking off quite as it did. Yet here I am, sitting in my chair, with my fingers tapping on a keyboard, writing for a youth-empowering media website. I doubt anyone could have actually predicted the phenomenon that is the internet. Its sheer power is immeasurable and I’m not afraid of that. I take advantage of almost every type of e-quipment out there today!
The internet is easily accessible and has created a whole world that at one time no-one could access. The prefix ‘E’ has revolutionised the way we communicate, the way we shop, even the way we live. It is the essence of the change we have embraced in the new millennium; we have been thrust forwards into a world of second-by-second new and auctions of toast with the Virgin Mary’s face on it.
Being a teenager, the internet is easy-peasy for me! I just have to browse around a site, look at an example of something and I’ll know how to use it. I can see myself sometime in the future, talking to my children about my first e-mail account. My kids will probably think I’m an old fart from the 1900s, who doesn’t know how to use the virtual reality washing machine properly; but I think my parents are old farts who don’t know how to set up a blog! I guess that’s just how things go.
Over a year ago, I thought I was pretty advanced on the technological front, until I met some real e-heads. They knew about Twitter before it was cool. They knew how to set up a website from just a blank page and a couple of codes. I got tips off them and now I’m the envy of my social clique with my blog, twitter account, and iPhone apps. I am just one step away from speaking in binary. But that begs the question, “What would the world be like without the internet?”
I know someone may have let out a little cry when reading that, but the internet wouldn’t have been possible if the American army hadn’t started it back in the late 80s. We’d have no laptop industry; we’d have no social networking sites; and, god forbid, no SpunOut.ie. Okay, even I let out a little cry there. We wouldn’t have touch-type keyboards or instant messaging. We’d still be sending postcards to the local office on our summer holidays to Marbella, instead of updating our status on Facebook. But have we become to dependant on communication? Are we over-communicating? Have we become too demanding for advancement of our internet connection? Are we e-greedy?
I don’t care to think very much about a horse and cart world. It just seems a bit too scary. The world without the internet - to me - is like reading the phonebook. I’m just going to hit the return button on my i-World with my e-happiness and crash into a false sense of anti-virus security.
By: Andrew Smith
