Does the internet feed our mind or poison it?
With a click of a button any question niggling you can be answered by Google with its worldwide knowledge, but is the internet poisoning our minds? The internet can be traced to the ‘1960’s and Americas use of the APRA net’ by their research defence team; however, other countries had networks, but communication within it was difficult. Access for the commercial user and the ‘invention of the world wide web in 1990’s’ saw the growth of the internet. Dial-up was slow and frustrating, but the invention of broadband, cheaper computers and browsers saw the internet become widely used. Its impact on our daily life opened up a new form of social interaction which provided both positive and negative experiences.
Social media keeps us up to date with celebrity gossip or what your friend had for dinner. We can connect with people all over the world and block them just as quick. Yet, the excessive use of the internet is affecting our health, causing lack of sleep and depression. On average, we spend ‘144 minutes’ a day online. If a child started using the internet at 10, by the time they reach 70, they would have spent ‘6 years and 8 months’ of their lives online. The internet connects people, but it can also create an online persona, the troll. People who hide behind the screen and abused that half-way around the world, because they can. There is a difference between voicing your opinion and bullying someone; having a constructive debate and using your opinion as fact. Luckily the police are cracking down on those abusing the power of the word, but the internet is vast, and you can’t control all the trolls. Online interaction is bringing people together but also isolating people from physical interaction.
Physical interaction can take a secondary place in our society, where there is no need to meet up with your friend, when a virtual reality world is possible. Even when people do get together, they are glued to their phones, with beeps commanding their attention. All it takes is one person to get out their phone and subconsciously everyone else gets theirs out. Our phones have turned into minicomputers, with websites as apps. We can capture a moment and share our memories, but the internet is consuming the way we live our life’s. You can’t go to a concert without most people around you filming it on their phones; watching a live concert through their phone.
The internet is here to stay, but it can also be toxic, with the content we look at and the time we spend online draining us. Monitoring how long you spend online, with a ‘screen time tracker’, will show how the internet is consuming your life. Some people take a break from online platforms, while others limit their internet usage. Like most indulgences, moderation is key, and by learning to put our phones away, we can start enjoying our life’s through our eyes and not that of a screen.
I am challenging myself to write a 500-word post a day for 30 days. I will choose a random word from the dictionary and to make this challenge more complicated; I will use the same word to create posts on Twitter and Instagram. I will create a haiku for twitter and post a photo on Instagram. If the word I choose is too obscure to make a post, I will choose another word.