The Internet, Blog # 3

The Internet can be utilized for many things, whether it be the young aspiring chef looking for a new recipe or a shady criminal buying excessive amounts of goods with stolen credit card numbers. Both positive and negative activities are being carried out on the Internet everyday by millions of people. Some use it to stay in touch with loved ones via Face book or E-mail, while others become removed from reality with programs like Second Life where they spend ample amount of time on the computer and not living life. The consistency of quality information on the Internet is also falling at a rapid rate since creating websites and sharing ideas and facts is open to almost anyone, credible or not. If your not checking the information you get from the Internet you could be viewing useless material conjured up by a fake professor. Criminals also use the Internet in many ways to ruin lives through identity theft and cyber-bullying. With so many negative aspects of the Internet, personally it's hard to find the positive ones but for me there are a few. Communication is a vast percentage of how I use the Internet on a daily basis, and I'm not sure how I would be able to reach the people that I do without it. Face book, MSN and E-mail all allow me to know what other people are going through or about to do in life and vice versa for my life to them. Google has also become a "go to" provider when I need help finding a certain piece of information, inspiration for completing school assignments and directing me to certain entertainment such as Youtube or game websites when I'm feeling bored. I have not experienced any of the negatives aspects of the Internet other than being on it way too much and often, but it does make me cautious of how I use the Internet and what I may do if I was ever in a vile situation. When it comes to the future of the Internet, I'll save you the burden of reading my Tron-like theory of how the Internet will become an alternate reality where you can do and see the things you do now but in person, by simply focusing on what will be posted on the Internet. In the next 40 years, I see the quality of true and important information like news to become an even smaller portion of the things posted on the Internet. Things like porn, forums for which Pokemon is best and new diet methods will overflow on search engines. I do not see much change in the layout of how the Internet is used today, but I am eager to see how communication will change. Technology is already advanced as it is, I can only imagine what will be discovered 40 years down the road.