Generation Internet

All over the world, every day, tasks that used to be handled by people are now handled by computers. Our cars, our jobs, our children and our whole way of living is dependent

upon computers to work more efficiently; but nothing has been more beneficial than the internet. Millions of people connect every day to receive stock quotes, news and even legal advice from fifteen-year-olds (Lewis 289). Need love advice? Or how about love in itself? Many people are now flocking to the internet to find mister or miss right, like Russ Parsons trying to find his mate in his article “A Shared Sadness.”

While working at NWA Techs as a computer technician, I have had the rare chance to take a step back and see how people use their computers on a daily basis. Every day someone walks in with a broken laptop or desktop PC and, almost in tears, begin telling me that they have a virus. They call two or three times a day to see if their computer is going to be OK. These people are genuinely worried about what will happen if it can’t be fixed!

Of course, put into a similar situation, we might all feel the same way. One of the main reasons to get on-line is to meet people. With the new online dating revolution, it would be easy to miss an online date in a chat room because a hard drive crashed. Without a computer, how cold we write in our blogs? According to Michael Snider in his article, “The Intimacy of Blogs” he states that “blogging” can be therapeutic (260). If my computer was at a tech shop I wouldn’t be able to access the NWAPolitics.com blog and I’d probably be a little upset. What about those who find social acceptance and importance online? Take Marcus Arnold, for instance, a fifteen-year-old boy mentioned earlier, that became the number one advisor on AskMe.com. For him, giving legal advice wasn’t just a hobby; it was a full time job! In one week, he received 943 e-mails asking for his advice (Lewis 291).

The sheer number of current internet users speaks for itself. Over 729 Million people access the ‘net (Global Internet Statistics (By Language)). That’s 11.5% of the earth’s total population. Because of this booming market, internet hosts (computers that serve websites) have quadrupled from July of 2000 to July of 2005 (ISC Internet Domain Survey).

I do understand the theory that computer usage and internet access has actually hurt society. In Fred Kaplan’s article “The End of History” he states that “The new, paperless world has encouraged a general carelessness in official record-keeping (250).” Did he forget that the internet stores more information than any other resource known to man? Or what about Alex Pham’s argument in his article “Boy, You Fight Like a Girl” where he states that the heterosexual lines blur when an internet user doesn’t really know the gender of the person they are speaking with (285)? I agree that it can be difficult to tell the gender of another person...in a chat room or online game. The problem with that statement is that there are numerous dating websites allowing a person to view a picture of their potential mate before ever speaking to them. If I’m looking for love, I go to a dating website…not an online game.

No matter what we each enjoy, the internet has something for us all and time will only tell how far it can be taken. There are many theories about what would happen if it ever actually shut down: The earth may stop spinning and fly