by Joe Williams

Created on: December 03, 2007

(Satire I wrote in college)

The Internet: Mature Content Only

When the Internet first became necessary for every man, woman, and child in America, my family followed suit with the purchase of our first family computer. By the end of my third grade year at Shelton Elementary School, the vast number of websites I found myself fixated upon had already stolen hours of my life away.

Although the Internet was created to both enrich and enhance my mind, I was just beginning a dark path of self-destruction and hate that would further corrupt me to my eight-year-old soul.
Before my father introduced me to the World Wide Web, I was a very healthy and active member of Dallas, Georgia. At only eight years old, I read no less than five hours a day, and often turned my nose at an opportunity to watch cartoons, allowing further time to study the periodic chart of elements. However, everything changed when I heard four little words that plagued the inner workings of my mind "Welcome! You've got mail!" My life began a nosedive to which recovery seems impossible.

Within hours of my first experience with the internet, I began playing with toy guns at my best friend Johnny's house, enjoying candy cigarettes in the woods, drinking root beer at the local park, and trafficking Coke to first graders all over town (I specialized in the diet and cherry variety.)

How was I to get away from it all? Every time I got online and searched "Saving Private Ryan," constant images of blood and inner organs appeared at every corner. Classmates argued, "It's supposed to be the job of the parent to make sure kids are looking at acceptable content," but in my parents defense, how could they? I was always on late at night when they were asleep. How were they supposed to know their angel was being exposed to the inner workings of the human anatomy and its vulnerability to shrapnel? If a pop-up made its presence and exposed a man and woman in very adult situations, how was I not supposed to be sucked in by its underlying message? If I knew porn was available, I exploited it at all times. My upbringing was thrown out the window in a situation that tested "right or wrong," and my morals were completely cluttered by images of erotic art.

When I forced to actually comply with my parents and focus on schoolwork, I was totally and completely lost. A research paper is supposed to be based on scientific fact and research, found only at the library. I needed the experience the art of searching an hour through

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