Without the Internet, my life would cease to exist
Alright, that sounded a little melodramatic, didn’t it? In all honestly though, let’s think about it, without the Internet we wouldn’t have e-mails, we wouldn’t have facebook, we wouldn’t have twitter, we wouldn’t be able to chat with friends, we wouldn’t know what was going on halfway across the world in less than 30 seconds, we wouldn’t be able to catch that episode from our TV show obsession that we missed last night, we wouldn’t be able to communicate to the outside world, we would cease to exist. Alright, there I go again. But honestly, right now, I just feel overwhelmed by the rapid technology racing past me.
Let’s take a look here though. With the way things are rapidly changing because of Internet, new social connections and norms are beginning to appear. I have a few facebook friends that I have never met in real life and some people I talk to on facebook that I hardly ever talk to in person even though we may share a class together and when I sit back and ponder on it, I can’t help but think how ridiculous that all sounds. Are we slowly trading actual human interaction for virtual interaction so we can sit in our pajamas and talk to someone?
I was reading a blog of one of my favorite and one of the most talented violinsts at this time, Hillary Hahn, and she brought up a few good points. For instance she said, “If you are Tweeting, then you might as well check your emails, and then you might as well just turn on the camera and make a recording for YouTube, and then you might as well have a little chat online while you’re at it, or play a game of Tetris or Scrabble, or write down ideas for that presentation you have to give next week. In that case, really, the question is, why are you here? Are you enjoying the beauty of the live concert experience, in which moments are fleeting and you have to get caught up in the flow because it will never be the same again?” (http://www.violinist.com/blog/HilaryHahn/20096/10222/) I have to wonder that too, with technology growing at such a rapid rate, will things like going to a live concert to take in the experience be forever extinct?
Will we resort to an existance where we are strapped to a computer, limited because we cannot bare to be away from the virtual world? Is the human race doomed to become the slobs that Pixar portrayed us as in Wall-E? Or is our future going to something as creepy as the video below portrays?
Now grant it, I love technology. It has made research so much easier, it has made writing so much easier and it has made keeping in contact with friends so much easier, connecting everyone. I’ll admit it, I’m dependent on the Internet but if I am expected to start dating someone via World of Warcraft or Second Life, that’s where I put my foot down. Remember, even if we feel connected to someone on the Internet, in actuality, you are sitting alone in a room.
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