by Author Name Withheld 228

Created on: November 20, 2010

Just the thought that there would be no more Facebooking, Googling, and working from home on the internet would be obsolete and never to exist again, will probably closer to the Apocalypse than we originally thought. There will probably be more people developing higher order communication skills, spending more time with family, and saving money. What a prospect.

With the internet comes so many advantages, it is pretty hard to imagine life without it. It allows people to connect in great ways and find old friends and even to work from home. Yet, we may get too comfortable making friends over the air waves and consider them “true friends” rather than making friends outside of home. Some fights are started online by pure misunderstandings. Emoticons can’t help all the time while you are on the internet. No one can engage your real feelings. Its very rare when good communication takes place online one hundred percent of the time.

In addition, we find that emailing companies, associates, and others is ideal compared to listening to a voice on the end of a phone. This same logic applies to those who SMS and text as an alternative to speaking with a person. When we get to school and talk amongst teachers and friends some of the text jargon many may not understand. What happened to just ‘plain words'?

Secondly, quality time would have a bit more meaning for a person. The individual without a family would probably engage more with reading, writing, or pursue a hobby like scrapbooking. Most would probably even take up an interest in astronomy because for once, they can see the sky and admire the real world we live in. This is not to say that the internet has severely crippled the excitement of looking at the world, if anything there are vast amounts of NASA photos of the planets to see online. The idea though, is to experience the fresh air. Actually see what it looks like outside at pre-dawn and twilight hours. Nothing is more exhilarating than that.

Without the internet, less time would be spent yelling, “Get off the computer and sit with me!” While more time would be spent getting to know the other soul in your house. The internet’s potential for becoming an addiction is staggering. Hands clicking on the computer, eye strain, back pain and then we are in no good mood for our spouses and children. The web offers so much more it seems. It offers virtual worlds, games, gambling, seek and find missions, and we replace people with it.

Finally, without the internet most of us would save at least $30-$40 per month. That’s roughly $480 per year. Imagine what you can do with that! Unfortunately, that’s how much it costs to have a good internet connection (depending on which company you are with). These phone companies know that people need to have the internet and most would not survive their careers without it. So they charge monthly fees to keep you connected. Now, there are USB modems which you can prepay and they tend to cost a pretty penny.

The internet has to exist therefore in order to contemplate what life could be like if things were available at the click of a button. How one may order voraciously online and save their credit numbers to pay bills automatically. This is the beauty of the internet where once before, we all speculated the quality and convenient use for it. Now, one must speculate: How can we minimize internet usage to get back to simplicity?

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