Lets all be honest with ourselves right here and now, there is nothing else that can take enthrall you like the ever growing Internet. Anything that one wants to find to do is on the Internet, from LOLcats, to tons of demotivational posters, to this wonderful blog. Your imagination is the limit, at least here in America (I will speak about this later). There is a virtual world where people of many countries and cultures can interact with each other in many ways, be it Facebook, MySpace, HCOL, and many others. People and Ideas that were once worlds away are just a Google search to me. I have been told that I spend too much time just surfing the Internet, but that is fine with me. My tanks for random knowledge are just now getting started filling, and they are quite deep. I don't mind being called and Internet junkey because the Internet is the coolest.
There was once a point in my life where I did not have the Internet, these were dark days indeed. I now cannot imagine not being able to StumbleUpon many wonderful things. Ever since I was a child, I was compeled to know how to do, make, and build things. Of course, I had a few books that I learned from, and TV had a few shows, but these few devices did not have what I was looking for. I wanted to know more, be it that what I have learned will not get me far, but I love the randomness of what is possible to be made. When I first found Instructables, I was in love. The treasure trove of information that I found was wonderful. I have made many projects from that site, and continue to visit it religiously.
Now I know that I am making it seem like the Internet can do no wrong. This is not the case at all. With everything that is good comes equal evil, and possibly more. But with power comes responsibility. Everyone knows that you can download illegal movies, meet strange people, and even watch illicit materials, but this is where common sense comes into play, and if you are under the age of 18, parental guidance, and parents if you say "Well I'm not able to watch my kids 24/7... blah, blah, blah" a net nanny comes in handy. But you should not say that the Internet needs to be censored. Yet another reason why I have come to enjoy the Internet is it embodies the freedom of speech that needs to be allowed for a free society. There are many places that censor the Internet to there citizens, and I feel that this is not right. Anyone should be able to freely post what the wish on the Internet without government interference. The Internet is an extremely large entity. There are good and bad, but for the bad that is had so much more good can come from it. Knowledge should not be censored, cool is about not being censored, I have been to the top and the bottom of the Internet, and I love it.
Kind of preaching to the choir, aren't ya?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you have to say to those who argue that the Internet and its vast knowledge is actually a bad thing because you will likely never use that vast amount of useless knowledge you have learned from spending so much time online?
Are these the same people who make us take ge ed bio classes...
ReplyDeleteI've always thought the internet to have 2 levels: One comprised of a near infinite repository of information, open source software, and business and a second made up of 4chan, encyclopedia dramatica, and petabytes of pornography. However, because the internet is here to stay, we have to live with the good and bad.
ReplyDeleteSeconding FJohn's comment, you are indeed preaching to the choir. What do you say to the charge that the internet allows too many voices, and has put the loudest of us some semblance of a leadership position? Or that we have democratized sources, like news, and therefore have lost any chance at having factual accounts of events happening around us (when popular sites like Wikipedia sometimes allow agreement to take the place of truth)?
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