The digital age is upon us people, that much is obvious. And although it pains me to say so, it's here to stay. The internet has most certainly changed the way we live, think, and communicate. We can shop without moving, see people who are worlds away, we can even exist in parallel universes, as fictional characters! All through the use of some wires and a little glass box. We can do things that would have been thought laughably impossible a century ago. To think that the telephone was a revelation! Yet here we are. If it's true that humans never stop evolving, does that mean our children are destined to be square-eyed, arthritis-ridden and anti-social? I hope not. When I was young, my vision of the future was of flying cars and robots and jetpacks, I'm sure that's a pretty generic perception. Sadly though, my rationality now overpowers my imagination, and the apparent future is nothing but an endless network of computers and virtual amusement. It's quite a haunting thought. Negative too, I know. I should be ranting about the endless opportunities and the societal improvements the internet creates, but I just can't bring myself to do it.
You might be thinking "if she's such a hater, why post it on Blogger.com?" Well, you'd be right to question my motives. The thing is, I face an endless internal struggle. I want to hate the internet, this dominating, identity-stealing, laziness-creating presence, yet still I embrace it. Here I am writing this public slander, using the very means that I am criticising. And last night I purchased a new jacket online, rather than going to the shops. And yesterday I checked my Facebook a multitude of times, out of boredom and curiosity. My hypocrisy is conspicuous and embarrassing. I, along with the rest of the planet, have succumbed to the merciless claws of the World Wide Web. It is entirely understandable that the internet has become an asset and a way of life. Humans will always embrace the quickest, most convenient way of doing things, busy creatures that we are. And that's exactly what the internet provides, an alternative, a practically instant way of achieving the things we want to.
As I'm sure you’re aware, you can find ANYTHING on web. You search the most obscure word or concept, and you'll get results. Need instructions on the best nose-picking technique? Want to locate your nearest fellow stamp collector? It's a guarantee that someone out there has taken the time to post it online. The amount of information available at our fingertips is nothing less than overwhelming. Search the name of a popular celebrity, and Google will provide you with an average of 500 million results. 500 million! It borders on ridiculousness. That's more than a lifetime's worth of reading.
The fact that anybody can contribute information is I suppose what makes the internet so vast. Anyone can be a publisher or a critic or a superstar. If you have an opinion about anything, it's easy to make it known. You can even scope out people that share this opinion, be they down the road or across the ocean. It really is quite incredible. You can even do all this while remaining anonymous. The thing about that is, people get all brave when nobody can see their face. Things that they wouldn't dream of saying in a normal context get plastered on public forums or in comment boxes everywhere. People hide behind their keyboard, thinking they're bad-ass with their witty judgement and their derogatory messages. All you have to do is scroll down through the commentary on a YouTube video, and you'll find one or more of these ball-busting cyberpunks at work. But on the other end of the spectrum, there's the incentive that if you post something, you'll receive an overwhelming amount of positive comments, riddled with exclamation marks, from complete strangers. That's bound to be an ego boost. It's no wonder everyone's jumping on the bandwagon.
It works the same way for things like blogs for example. I'm currently making my thoughts publicly accessible. I'll pretend that I'm not phased by people's reactions sure, but in reality, I'll be disappointed if nobody reads it. The net fuels our primal need for constant approval, but provides justifications if those needs aren't met. It offers us an escape route per se, a delete button. However, even if our opinions are sent to live eternally and invisibly in cyberspace, they're not erased from our minds. We are undeniably human after all. It's sad to think that some words appearing on a screen can alter our sense of acceptance though.
We've been given the opportunity to broadcast ourselves, and we've reached out and grabbed it with both hands. It's almost as if nothing is private anymore. We publicise photos and locations. God, we even publicise what we're eating for dinner. As if people are interested. But it would seem that they are. 64% of all New Zealanders belong to some type of social networking site, Facebook being the obvious majority. This mass participation means that people are constantly in contact. People's lives have lost any element of mystery whatsoever. There's no such thing as a "catch up", if you've been avidly following your friends' Facebook updates. You could argue that this is a positive development, it's nice to know what's going on right?! Except when it comes to the obsessive "stalking" of people we barely know, just to satisfy our nosy needs. Or having to endure that one friend who posts unnecessary statuses 6 times daily.
I guess like any debate, there are good sides and bad sides. I'm not about to get on my high horse and say that the internet should be discontinued (as if I have that power). Despite making us lazy and altering our natural lifestyles, I agree that the internet is highly beneficial. For a lot of us, our entire being revolves around internet-based activities. And as much as I love to resent it, I sure as hell couldn't live without it. I often fantasise about how life would be, had I been born in the 1800s, when the word "internet" existed in nobody's vocabulary. Or if I went to Hogwarts, where magic and owls compensate for technology. But this is nothing more than fruitless escapism, because I am obviously a 21st century human being, and a life without showers and computers is unfathomable. Perhaps my apparent dislike for web technology stems from the fact that I don't embrace change very well. I still prefer to meet people face to face. I'd rather play a board game than play Angry Birds. And the extinction of books (and I mean paperbacks NOT eBooks obviously), is something that genuinely frightens me.
Having said all this, I'm learning to recognise that boycotting the internet is not going to do me any favours. All it will do is make me feel isolated and inferior. Its existence was obviously born out of the human need to communicate, something that existed long before computers and satellites and electricity. We've just gotten wiser over time, and learned that there are more advanced ways to make contact. So although the internet can be used as a weapon and a shield, it's also a priceless tool and a noticeable advancement of human achievement. Admittedly, it's nice be able to stay in touch with far away friends, to be able to access things instantly and share things far and wide. It seems that my negative attitude is again likely to be thwarted by majority and logic. I’m sure there's other people like me who fear the dominance of this cyber companionship, but evolution is inevitable, and even if it's daunting, we minions can't prevent it. So the only option is for us to just go with it, which I will endeavour to achieve without complaint.
