Virtually Awesome

I'm always watching Netflix...when I turn on my computer.  Its as if I do nothing without that extra voice in the background.  I feel like I never give my full attention to the things I do online.  The internet offers the perfect venue for multitasking.  I can do so many things at once...in so many different windows.  My attention is never fully committed to a single task.  Being able to do so much in one place appears to be awesome, however, this multitasking spreads us too thin.  Most everything we do online is half-assed when we are virtually multitasking :/.

Obsessed with You Online

The internet is really interested in me.  Everywhere I go, it wants my time.  It wants my time on Facebook playing endless games of Tetris against my friends.  The internet wants me to Skype my friends, blog to people who aren't really listening, and watch ever TV show I saw as a kid in online versions on Netflix.  There are so many activities online!  And they just keep getting better and more interesting and resemble the things that used to exist in my non-virtual life. I just joined Pintrest!  I don't know why I did this, I spend enough time doing useless things online, I do not need Pintrest, but its like a magazine!  Everything I want to look at and short descriptions of what I should think of these pictures I see.  Right now, I have mostly pinned pictures of puppies at this point...because I like to look at cute pictures of puppies :).http://pinterest.com/

Withdrawl???

Ok, I know that I talk about coffee a lot.  Its just because its a big part of my life and plays a role in everything that I do.  I tried to cut back on my caffeine intake (which is mostly coffee), and it was by far the worst idea I have had in a long time.  I'm not doing it anymore, cutting back is not for me.  I broke down and got a latte today... I don't feel remorseful at all :)

http://www.caffeinedependence.org/caffeine_dependence.html#withdrawal

Here are all the terrible things that will happen to you if you are an addict and try to ween yourself off of your drug.

When Coffee Attacks

Now, I'm sure most of you have heard of the infamous story where a woman sued McDonalds because she spilled McDonalds coffee on her lap and it resulted in 2nd and 3rd degree burns.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants Well, I love coffee, but it really hurt me this morning.  My arm knocked it over onto my lap this morning in my car...and while I did not get burned, I still think I should sue someone...just to feel better about the situation. I have decided that my best course of action would be to sue Ford, because I drive a Ford Taurus. I will sue them because the cup holders they install in their vehicles are stupid! They don't work! And I'm kidding, but not totally because I hate my cup holder in my car, part of it is rotting because the thing was manufactured in 2004. The rotting part is where the issue comes in, the thing cannot hold a beverage. I think I have a pretty good case :) Don't you?

Every Fishy in the Mainstream, Please

Speaking of common experiences online, how many sites do you visit that are not mainstream.  Sure, you're online using Facebook, google, and youtube like it's going out of style, but who visits other sites??? On a daily basis? Now, I know that this is a tad contradictory because google is a site designed to take you to other websites, but the content you get from the list google offers you is mainstream.  Its the most popular, most used, most likely to apply to you content. And, although google knows you are an individual with your own likes and dislikes (aka things you will buy and things you will not buy), it is the aggregate data received by google from all of its users that ultimately determines what shows up on your screen. Some people who are avid users of the internet and readers of diverse content and visitors of obscure online material, but I am not one of those people. I actually only use a few sites that are relevant to my daily life. Even though we might think that the world is online now and we are all using the internet, in truth, we are not all true "internet users." The internet has so much more to offer than people use it for. So go surf the web! What ever happened to that? Oh, yea, so like facebook can offer you all the entertainment you need online...that's why you friended that one girl, because she's always posting....interesting pictures of herself. Who really USES the internet? When was the last time you went exploring without the use of a site like stumble upon.com?

Internet Domination

I cannot imagine my life without the internet, now, and, especially, as a student.  I do everything online! I even have to email my papers to a different computer because I type them on my laptop.  There is almost nothing I can do for class without the internet.....wait! Whaaaat? So, like what did people do in school when there was no internet??? I guess there were still libraries...so they looked things up in books.  That must have taken forever, I do not think I would have survived in college when there was no internet.  I just would not have had the patience. On another related note, how did anyone socialize discretely and without any human con act what soever, but still be super popular and have five thousand friends without the internet? I know I keep asking rhetorical questions, but these subjects just seem so blatantly obvious and worth asking.  How is the internet affecting your life? Is it a big part? Is it a small part? Could you actually function and be ok without it? :) Think about it.

Kiddies on Facebook

I think that the internet is becoming difficult for parents to understand and regulate.  I also believe that more bad comes out of kids under the age of thirteen joining social networking sites than good.  If you consider the amount of cyber-bullying that goes on between kids online, you can see how kids can be incredibly destructive using the internet.  It bothers me that kids under the age of 13 have a Facebook page because it taints the credibility of Facebook and everyone who uses it for legitimate purposes.  I, personally, started using Facebook because its upheld by a certain standard which is why it is so useful to me in communicating with my friends.  I also do not agree with dogs having Facebook pages because they just get to be so excessive.  When does this end? Who is actually using the internet? What are we supposed to trust? Facebook used to be credible because you could contact people you knew existed and that you had some kind of real-world relationship with. Now, Facebook is less credible because there are so many pages taken up by pets and other non-humans or duplicate human who have more than one Facebook page.  I think that in order to solve this issue Facebook should come up with better ways of filtering out these "fake pages." I think that there should be a limit to the number of people allowed to register Facebook profiles per electronic device so that those who create these fake pages will be deterred from doing so.

But I want it now!!!

In today's fast-moving world, we no longer have to wait to communicate with each other.  It is almost an invasion of our privacy to carry around a cell phone which gives anyone with our number access to us. We are expected to have cell phones and to keep these devices on us at all times.  This takes away our need for patience.  We should be able to get ahold of anyone whose cell phone number we have in our phone.  Which is electronically kept, so that we don't even have to remember the number. In addition to our cell phones chiseling-away at our capacity for patience, Google makes it so that we don't even have to wait to get information. We can instantly get what we want and where we want to be on the internet.  We even have mobile devices that can access the internet anywhere we happen to be! Gimme gimme gimme! And if you don't get it for me, I have google :)... that is, information, of course, we still haven't figured out how to instantaneous transport material goods right when we want them...but in due time, friends.