The Internet: A Black Hole of Distraction

I thought the movie we watched was more entertaining than informative because it portrays the extremes of teen internet usage, many teens use the internet and social networking sites all the time without it negatively effecting their lives. It is amazing how quickly things change in the world of technology because although the movie was only about 2 years old it seemed very outdated. The people in the movie like girl who created a new identity and the anorexic girl used the powers of the internet to create a new self because they were not happy with the way they were. For many people though, the internet is just an extension of who they are in real life and they use it to stay connected to the world and communicate with others in their lives. The internet is an extremely useful tool for communicating with people whether they are old or new friends and whether they are your neighbors or live halfway across the world. The internet could certainly be a dangerous place, as the overprotective mother in the movie fears, if kids used it to talk to random strangers, but the large majority of kids, especially if they are teenagers, are smart enough to realize not to talk to people they don’t know, and especially not to tell them personal details. I think that the older generation today does not realize how in tune teenagers are with the world of the internet, we have grown up using it and so we know how to use it and how to avoid dangers.

I think the most dangerous thing about the internet is not sexual predators lurking in chat rooms, but the great potential for distraction and procrastination that the internet provides. On one hand the internet provides an incredible amount of resources that should make it quick and easy to do research or homework, but this vast mountain of information also provides a million different ways to avoid doing that homework. Facebook is the ultimate example of this. Facebook is a great tool because it allows me to keep in touch with friends and family and see what is going on in their lives, but when it comes time for me to sit down and do work I always find myself going to Facebook or similar sites for a distraction. I have often found myself wasting hours jumping in between these sites, just wasting time and not using the sites for their intended informative purpose. It seems that the internet has instilled a short attention span into many of today teenagers. Now, we not only have trouble focusing on our work, we have trouble focusing on our distractions. When I am procrastinating I often find that I go on Facebook only to get bored after a few minutes so I then go and check my email and then get bored again and will go play a game or go back on Facebook or something similar. Parents should be more worried about this dangerous trend than that of internet predators.