Internet Distractions

Looking at the lists that my classmates made of their Internet usage, I found them to contain few necessary uses.  On most occasions I saw my classmates using the Internet for pointless endeavors that wasted their time.  I was surprised at how much time was spent on nothing.  One explanation for this could be that they were trying to have something to put in their notes and thus boosted their usage of the common facebook and twitter… I know that’s what I did.  This can hardly be true for our entire class, however, as much as I regret it, our generation is on the web way too much.

Ever since society could access it, the Internet has been used by billions of people around the globe.  This website that I found shows the statistics on the amount of people accessing the web: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm . Somewhat to my surprise only 30% of the world population has ever had access but I suppose that was an ignorant point of view that I held.  Regardless, that’s over two billion people that have the opportunity to view almost any piece of information to exist.  (Minus countries like china, which have restricted access)

With so much information out there to view, I think we as a society have reached the point where we are overwhelmed.  Our generation especially reverts back to using the Internet for only a few websites.  I for one open my laptop expecting to Google something awesome and learn something new but this never happens.  Laziness gets the better of me.  On good days I skim the front page of the New York Times, which remains my homepage.  Other days I click right to the link I have for facebook.  When I find nothing interesting there, my Internet usage is over.  This is what I found my classmates to be doing as well, nothing…

This isn’t much of a surprise after looking at the statistics on the most visited websites in the U.S.: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US

My conclusion: We as a society generally use the Internet with the intention of accomplishing nothing.  Its there when we really need it, but mainly its there all the times we don’t… just to waste our time.